LIBRARY 

UNIVCKSITY  OF 
CALItORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


THE   PLACE  OF  DEATH 
IN   EVOLUTION 


THE  PLACE  OF  DEATH 
IN  EVOLUTION 


BY 


NEWMAN  \SMYTH 


1  The  face  of  Death  is  toward  the  Sun  of  Life, 
His  shadow  darkens  earth." 

TBNNYSON 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
1897 


COPYRIGHT,  1897,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


KTorfaooB  tyrtsa 

1.  S.  Curbing  It  Co.  -  Berwick  k  Smith 
Norwood  Man.  U.S.A. 


o  a 

WHOSE   MEMORY 
MAKES  RICHER  AND   MORE  REAL 

LIFE'S   PROMISE   TO    FRIENDSHIP 

OF  THE  FUTURE 

i£astcr 


PREFACE 

THIS  volume  is  the  first  fruit  of  a  fur- 
ther and  larger  purpose  which  the  author 
has  long  had  in  mind,  and  which  in  some 
future  season  may  possibly  become  ripe 
for  its  harvesting.  It  springs  from  a  pro- 
found conviction  that  the  one  theological 
task  which  waits  to  be  accomplished  is 
a  thorough  and  comprehensive  demonstra- 
tion of  the  fact,  which  the  disciple  of  old 
perceived,  that  the  Life  was  manifested  in 
the  Christ;  and  hence  it  will  prove  true 
that  His  essential  words  meet  and  match 
the  great  principles  of  life  which  have 
been  hidden  in  nature's  heart  from  the 
beginning.  It  will  be  shown  how  natur- 
ally, and  as  the  appointed  heir  of  all 
things,  Christianity  wins  and  wears  the 
crown  of  life. 

The  next  reconstruction  of  Christian 
theology  will  be  a  vital  one;  it  will  re- 
sult from  a  deeper  knowledge  and  a  truer 


Vlll  PREFACE 

interpretation  of  the  sacred  Scripture  of 
Life,  which  the  hand  of  God  has  written 
in  nature.  The  coming  theologian,  there- 
fore,—  the  next  successful  defender  of  the 
faith  once  given  to  the  saints, —  will  be  a 
trained  and  accomplished  biologist.  Not 
only  will  his  thought,  descending  from 
the  heights  of  solitary  abstraction,  and 
forsaking  the  cloistered  shades  of  the 
schoolmen,  ancient  and  modern,  proceed 
like  the  wayfaring  Son  of  man  along  the 
familiar  paths  of  human  life,  in  closest 
touch  with  the  common  heart  of  human- 
ity; but  also  each  organic  form  will  tell 
to  him  the  story  of  its  origins,  and  the 
least  living  cell  will  unveil  the  secret 
chambers  of  its  divinity.  Partial  and 
hurried  efforts,  indeed,  have  been  made 
in  recent  years  to  set  our  primal  faiths 
in  their  large  vital  connections;  —  Mr. 
Drummond's  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual 
World,  and  Mr.  Kidd's  Social  Evolution, 
are  stimulating  efforts  in  this  direction; 
but  the  value  of  these  first  endeavors  lies 
in  their  true  apprehension  of  the  work 
needing  to  be  done,  rather  than  in  their 


PREFACE  IX 

permanent  contribution  to  its  solution. 
The  science  of  biology  itself  has  been  far 
too  crude,  and  its  theories  are  still  too 
tentative,  and  even  conflicting  at  many 
points,  to  warrant  us  as  yet  in  building 
upon  them  over-confidently  the  higher 
conclusions  of  the  Christian  reason. 
Nevertheless,  within  the  past  thirty 
years,  and  since  Darwin,  some  sure 
ground  has  been  gained  by  evolutionary 
science,  and  biology  in  particular  is  open- 
ing fields  of  knowledge  which  invite 
fresh  inquiry  on  the  part  of  thoughtful 
believers. 

The  larger  work,  in  this  attractive 
field,  to  which  the  author  looks  forward, 
may  never  be  brought  by  him  to  its 
accomplishment:  it  is  so  large  and  many- 
sided  that  it  can  be  achieved  only  by  the 
toil  of  many  minds,  and  as  the  result  of 
prolonged  studies  and  discoveries  of  the 
laws  and  processes  of  life,  from  the  mar- 
vel of  the  microscopic  germ  up  to  nature's 
highest  miracle  of  the  potency  of  human 
thought  and  love.  Both  that  earlier  won- 
der of  the  living  cell,  and  the  later  marvel 


X  PREFACE 

of  the  living  soul,  belong  to  the  same  con- 
tinuous order,  and  are  a  revealing  of  the 
same  divine  mystery  of  life.  All  our 
science  of  nature  and  the  history  of  man 
may  come  back  at  last  to  the  Master's 
single  word  of  interpretation :  "  It  is  the 
spirit  that  quickeneth." 

One  reason  for  the  present  publication 
of  this  portion  of  the  author's  work  is  the 
hope  that  it  may  stimulate  other  minds  to 
enter,  in  the  pursuit  of  similar  inquiries, 
that  field  of  evolutionary  research  which 
not  long  ago  it  was  thought  to  be  perilous 
for  theologians  to  traverse,  and  past  which 
devout  believers  were  inclined  to  hasten, 
as  though  it  were  a  forbidden  region, 
haunted  with  destructive  doubts;  but 
which  we  now  generally  perceive  to  be 
a  field  of  the  Lord,  fresh  with  fruits  of 
wholesome  knowledge,  and  bright  with 
promise  for  Christian  faith. 

The  author  ventures  also  to  hope  that 
the  line  of  thought  which  is  pursued 
through  the  following  pages  may  lead 
some  readers  to  surer  courage  for  daily  life 
amid  its  trials  and  sorrows.  It  may  bring 


PREFACE  XI 

help  especially  to  those  who  must  receive 
inward  renewal  and  cheer,  if  at  all,  not 
merely  from  the  breath  of  spiritual  fra- 
grance which  may  be  borne  in  occasionally 
through  the  soul's  open  windows — they 
hardly  know  from  whence  and  how;  but 
rather  from  their  thoughtful  entertain- 
ment of  those  serious  truths  which  knock 
for  entrance  into  our  minds,  as  they  come 
in  plain  and  honest  simplicity  from  the 
workshops  of  our  sciences,  and  from  the 
fields  of  laborious  investigations.  Only 
thus,  through  an  open-minded  and  fear- 
less hospitality  towards  all  observed  and 
reasoned  truths,  can  our  Christian  faith 
escape  the  weakness  of  a  pleasing  but 
ineffectual  desire,  and  continue  to  be  our 
reasonable  service. 

Although  the  author's  main  purpose  is 
still  in  the  process  of  growth,  suggestive 
circumstances  and  the  warmth  of  friend- 
ships whose  light  is  in  part  the  joy  of 
present  life,  and  in  part  the  influence  of 
the  unseen,  have  caused  this  single  branch 
of  his  thought  to  come  more  quickly  to  its 
ripening;  and  because  as  a  study  it  is 


Xll  PREFACE 

complete  in  itself,  it  is  now  given  to  the 
public. 

If  the  sustenance  and  comfort  for  our 
dearest  and  deathless  hopes  here  offered, 
should  seem  at  first  taste  to  any  readers 
to  be  enclosed  in  a  too  scientific  rind,  the 
author  trusts  that  within  the  harder  sci- 
entific reasonings  much  sweetness  and 
strength  may  be  found  for  our  vital 
faiths.  In  order  to  render  the  matter  of 
it  more  easy  of  access  for  the  general 
reader,  necessary  technical  scientific  ma- 
terial and  extended  citations  of  authori- 
ties have  been  relegated  to  notes  in  an 
appendix.  These  notes,  however,  should 
not  be  overlooked  in  any  critical  review 
of  the  subject. 

The  pursuit  for  several  years  of  such 
studies  increases  the  conviction  in  which 
this  volume  has  been  written,  that  new 
light  is  breaking  from  evolutionary  sci- 
ence, and  that  in  that  light  we  shall  see 
coming  out  again  more  clearly  and  more 
surely  the  simple  and  immortal  faiths  of 
our  human  hearts  and  homes. 

NEW  HAYEK,  April,  1897. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.       THE     ENTRANCE      AND     USE     OF     DEATH     IN 

NATURE        1 

II.   THE  PATH   OF  LIFE  THROUGH  THE  EVIL 

IN  NATURE 44 

III.  SCIENTIFIC    PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY         57 

IV.  THE    FINAL    DISCHARGE    OF    DEATH         .       .       .       107 

V.       THE    BIOLOGICAL    AND    THE     BIBLICAL    VIEW 

OF   DEATH 136 

VI.       THE     METHOD     OF     POSITIVE     BENEVOLENCE 

IN    THE    LAW    OF    DEATH 163 


207 


THE    PLACE    OF    DEATH    IN 
EVOLUTION 

CHAPTER   I 

THE  ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH  IN 
NATURE 

IN  recent  years  biological  investigations 
have  penetrated  within  the  veil  of  mi- 
croscopic cells,  and  learned  secrets  of  life 
and  death  which  were  little  dreamed  of  in 
our  philosophy.  Traces  of  an  infinitesi- 
mal structure,  which  before  had  not  been 
suspected,  have  been  lately  discovered 
within  the  least  and  simplest  living 
cells;  and  arrangements  of  invisible 
molecules  of  matter  in  an  orderly  and 
organized  service  are  now  known  to  be 
provided  in  the  contents  of  each  cell  in 
which  life  has  its  abode.  One  of  the 
last  wonders  of  modern  science  consists 


2          ENTRANCE  AND   USE   OF   DEATH 

in  the  disclosure  of  the  intricate  mechan- 
ism of  the  nucleus  of  each  cell,  and  in 
the  revelation  of  regular  processes  of  its 
marvellous  development.  Further  expla- 
nation of  the  problem  of  heredity  and 
the  causes  of  variation,  which  Darwin- 
ism opened,  but  did  not  solve,  is  now 
eagerly  sought  by  many  keen-eyed  bio- 
logical students,  equipped  with  the  high- 
est powers  of  the  microscope,  who  peer 
into  the  structural  texture,  and  observe 
the  behavior  of  the  vital  units  within  the 
mystery  of  the  egg.  The  living  cell,  that 
"long-expected  child  of  time,"  "the  pre- 
cious nursling  of  the  ages,"  as  it  has  been 
called,  has  recently  drawn  to  itself  an  im- 
mense amount  of  scientific  attention;  and 
doubtless  upon  the  fascinating  mystery  of 
its  origins,  its  aptitudes,  and  its  growth, 
it  will  concentrate  still  more  the  interest 
of  thoughtful  observers  who  would  inter- 
pret with  definite  knowledge  nature's  un- 
ceasing drama  of  life  and  death. 

Neither  of  these  familiar  powers  of  life 
or  death  has  disclosed  to  our  most  in- 
quisitive biological  science  its  last,  inner- 


ENTRANCE  AND   USE   OF   DEATH          3 

most  secret.  The  science  which  has  en- 
tered so  far  within  the  cell,  and  which  is 
observing  with  exact  definition  the  last 
hiding-places  of  life,  nevertheless  does  not 
hear  the  first  creative  word,  and  cannot 
tell  the  final  cause  of  the  origin  of  life. 
Probably  it  never  will ;  for  to  see  life  re- 
vealed in  its  first  truth  might  be  to  see 
the  living  God.  Our  science,  which  thus 
pursues  life  until  it  is  lost  from  view  in 
some  mystery  of  godliness,  has  not  suc- 
ceeded any  better  in  disclosing  the  ulti- 
mate nature  or  final  cause  of  death.  Yet 
the  nearer  approach  of  recent  biological 
science  to  the  origins  of  life  brings  knowl- 
edge closer  also  to  the  beginnings  of 
death  in  the  organic  world.  Some  new 
light  is  thus  thrown  by  recent  science 
over  the  dark  problem  of  mortality.  By 
the  scientific  method,  —  that  is,  by  rea- 
soning which  proceeds  from  a  basis  of 
observed  facts, —  we  may  now  make  a  fur- 
ther and  profitable  study  of  the  origin  and 
function  of  death  in  nature,  and  thus  be 
enabled  to  interpret  more  intelligibly  its 
mission  for  life. 


4          ENTRANCE  AND   USE  OF   DEATH 

Until  quite  recently  our  evolutionary 
science  was  content  either  to  pass  by  the 
place  and  work  of  death  without  exact 
observation  of  its  uses  in  nature ;  or  else 
it  has  regarded  the  universal  prevalence 
of  death  throughout  the  organic  world  as 
a  necessary  consequence  of  the  struggle 
of  life,  and  has  dismissed  it  from  further 
questioning  as  an  incidental  factor  in 
evolution.  Thus  Mr.  Spencer  was  satis- 
fied with  a  philosophical  determination 
and  definition  of  the  nature  of  vital  pro- 
cesses, which  included  the  possibility  of 
death  within  the  terms  of  the  definition. 
More  attention  was  called  to  this  neglected 
factor  in  organic  evolution  by  the  publi- 
cation in  1881,  and  again  in  1883,  by  a 
German  investigator,  Weismann,  of  some 
results  of  his  studies  concerning  heredity, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  discussed  the 
nature  of  death,  and  the  causes  for  the 
limitation  in  different  species  of  the  du- 
ration of  life.  About  the  same  time  an- 
other German  zoologist,  Biitschli,  who  had 
carried  on  extensive  researches  among  the 
lowest  organisms,  began  to  entertain  ideas 


ENTRANCE  AND   USE  OF   DEATH          5 

somewhat  similar  to  those  which  Weis- 
mann  first  published  in  his  essays  on 
Life  and  Death  and  the  Duration  of  Life. 
Mr.  Wallace,  who  shares  with  Darwin  the 
honor  of  originating  the  modern  concep- 
tion of  the  part  which  has  been  played  by 
natural  selection  in  evolution,  in  a  note 
to  his  volume  on  Darwinism  (published 
in  1889)  remarks  that  an  idea  similar  to 
that  advanced  by  Weismann,  concerning 
the  utility  of  natural  death,  had  occurred 
to  him  some  twenty  years  before,  and 
been  noted  down,  but  subsequently  for- 
gotten. 

Later  investigations  seem  to  require  the 
modification  in  some  particulars  of  the 
ideas  originally  advanced  by  Weismann, 
and  to  put  back  the  first  appearance 
of  natural  death  nearer  to  the  earliest 
manifestations  of  life  than  he  had  sup- 
posed. Much  work  of  painstaking  re- 
search in  this  direction  remains  to  be 
accomplished ;  and  biological  theories  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  heredity  and  the 
fundamental  laws  and  processes  of  life  and 
death  are  still  too  largely  in  the  air,  and 


6         ENTRANCE  AND   USE  OF   DEATH 

they  will  need  to  be  anchored  more  se- 
curely to  observed  facts  before  we  can 
trust  entirely  our  faiths  to  them.  Never- 
theless, much  knowledge  has  been  gained 
concerning  the  origin  and  functions  of 
death  in  the  course  of  the  development 
of  life  by  the  researches  already  under- 
taken; and  the  facts  disclosed,  as  well 
as  the  theories  advanced  by  some  trained 
biologists,  fairly  open  the  new  and  inter- 
esting question  whether  death  itself  does 
not  fall  naturally  under  some  principle 
of  selection  and  law  of  utility  for  life. 
Enough  ground,  at  least,  has  been  won 
by  our  tentative  science  to  give  our  phi- 
losophy further,  and  somewhat  more  ad- 
vanced foothold  in  the  path  of  inquiry, 
along  which  the  reason  of  man  makes 
ceaseless  effort  to  surmount  the  hard  in- 
evitableness  of  death,  and  in  clearer  light 
to  gain  firmer  hope  of  immortality. 

These  studies  of  life  which  our  newer 
biologists,  since  Darwin,  are  carrying  on, 
may  be  described  in  the  graphic  words  of 
one  of  the  oldest  observers  of  nature  and 
human  life,  who  was  also  a  tried  and 


ENTRANCE   AND    USE   OF   DEATH  7 

troubled  theologian,  "  Man  setteth  an  end 
to  darkness,  and  searcheth  out  to  the  fur- 
thest bound  the  stones  of  thick  darkness 
and  of  the  shadow  of  death."*  Like  one 
who  sets  miners'  lamps  along  the  course 
which  he  would  explore,  so  man  in  these 
more  recent  sciences  searches  to  the  fur- 
thest bound,  and  finds  there  the  stones 
which  mark  for  the  present  the  end  of 
his  inquiry  into  the  thick  darkness  and 
the  shadow  of  death.  Our  science  of  life 
is  reaching  into  the  darkness,  and  farther 
and  farther  from  the  borders  of  the  near, 
the  tangible,  and  the  visible,  it  is  remov- 
ing the  bounds  of  knowledge  out  into  the 
mystery  of  life  and  death. 

Familiarity  with  the  successes,  and  also 
with  the  failures,  of  evolutionary  science 
since  Darwin  will  serve  to  produce,  in 
regard  to  all  such  inquiries,  a  reverent 
spirit,  if  not  also  an  expectant  attitude 
of  faith.  Men  who  have  but  slight  ac- 
quaintance with  the  work  needing  to  be 
done,  which  still  lies  before  our  biolo- 
gists, may  conjure  lightly  with  the  word 
*  Job  xxviii.  3. 


8          ENTRANCE   AND   USE   OF   DEATH 

evolution,  as  though  it  explained  all  mys- 
teries, and  dispensed  with  any  necessity 
of  faith;  but  men  who  have  learned  how 
knowledge  as  well  as  faith  requires  pa- 
tience for  its  perfecting  will  understand 
the  wisdom  both  of  the  caution  and  the 
hope  which  finds  expression  in  this  re- 
mark of  one  of  our  American  biologists: 
"My  last  word  is,  that  we  are  entering 
the  threshold  of  the  Evolution  problem, 
instead  of  standing  within  the  portals. 
The  hardest  tasks  lie  before  us,  not  be- 
hind us,  and  their  solution  will  carry  us 
well  into  the  twentieth  century."* 

While  our  biological  science  has  thus, 
until  quite  lately,  not  ventured  so  far  as 
it  might  into  the  darkness  of  the  shadow 
of  death  over  nature,  our  theology,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  been  and  is  still  contented 
to  regard  the  law  of  death  as  a  law  of  sin, 
originally  connected  with  man's  fall,  and 
as  presenting  chiefly  a  human  problem  to 

*  Osborn,  The.  Hereditary  Mechanism  and  the 
Search  for  the  Unknown  Factors  of  Evolution^  in 
Biological  Lectures,  Wood's  Holl,  for  1894,  p.  100. 


ENTRANCE   AND   USE   OF   DEATH          9 

our  faith.  The  fact  of  the  prevalence  of 
death  in  nature  before  man's  fall  has  been 
left  vaguely  in  the  background  of  theology. 
It  has  sometimes  been  ignored  as  a  prob- 
lem of  evil  with  regard  to  which  we  have 
no  clear  word  of  revelation ;  or,  when  the 
problem  of  natural  evil  has  pressed  like  a 
burden  upon  the  heart  of  faith,  the  en- 
trance of  death  into  the  creation  before 
man  has  been  hesitatingly  explained  as  a 
necessary  anticipation  of  the  curse  which 
was  predestined  to  fall,  and  Avhich  nature 
consequently  must,  from  the  beginning, 
make  ready  to  let  drop  in  due  time  upon 
the  sin  of  man.  Death,  occurring  in  the 
natural  order  of  life,  has  thus  been  re- 
garded as  a  part  of  the  preparation  of  the 
stage  for  the  tragedy  of  man's  sin  and 
the  victory  of  his  redemption. 

Our  theology  may  be  excused  for  not 
gaining  any  larger  and  more  intelligent 
conception  of  the  appearance  of  death  in 
nature  beneath  man,  so  long  as  our  bio- 
logical science  has  had  little  or  nothing 
to  say  as  to  the  exact  point  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  life  where  death  first  entered,  and 


10   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

while  also  it  has  been  unable  to  offer  any- 
thing better  than  a  general  conjecture  con- 
cerning the  natural  function  and  possible 
service  of  death  in  the  evolution  of  life. 
But  our  Christian  theology  would  be  wor- 
thy of  blame,  should  it  not  be  quick  to 
take  up  into  its  conception  of  the  divine 
order  of  benevolence  any  hints  which  re- 
cent biology  may  have  to  suggest  with 
reference  to  the  probable  natural  utilities 
of  death.  It  is  of  religious  concern,  as 
well  as  of  scientific  interest,  for  us  to 
learn,  and  to  think  out,  as  far  as  we 
possibly  may,  all  the  facts  and  sugges- 
tions which  prolonged  and  microscopic 
researches  may  bring  to  our  knowledge 
concerning  the  minute  processes,  or  most 
intimate  and  hidden  laws  of  life  and 
death.  For  if  we,  children  of  an  age  of 
questioning  and  of  change,  are  to  keep  a 
rational  faith  in  spiritual  reality,  strong 
and  genuine  as  was  our  fathers'  faith  ac- 
cording to  their  light,  ours  must  be  a  faith 
that  shall  strike  its  roots  down  deep  into 
all  knowledge,  although  light  from  above 
alone  may  bring  it  to  its  perfect  Christian 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   11 

trust  and  sweetness.  If,  then,  our  bio- 
logical science  is  running  the  lines  of 
its  investigation  deeper  across  familiar 
ground,  as  well  as  over  fields  of  knowl- 
edge not  hitherto  upturned,  our  faiths 
should  quickly  follow,  sowing  again  their 
seed  of  promise  in  the  freshly  worked 
soil.  Nor  should  we  despise  any  hints 
which  biology  may  bring  of  larger  utili- 
ties in  nature  than  we  have  imagined, 
because  such  facts  may  seem  at  first 
thought  to  be  slight  and  insignificant. 
The  least  facts  of  nature  may  be  germi- 
nal with  high  spiritual  significance  and 
beauty. 

Analogies  indeed  from  natural  laws 
are  not  proofs  of  spiritual  processes ;  and 
they  should  never  be  pressed  beyond 
the  probabilities  of  reason  which  may  lie 
within  them.  The  demonstration  of  the 
spiritual  order  cannot  lie  in  the  natural. 
Nevertheless,  if  the  universe  be  framed 
in  one  divine  thought,  and  its  laws,  in 
different  realms  of  it,  proceed  from  the 
same  Intelligence,  we  should  expect  to 
find  that  knowledge,  shining  suddenly  in 


12   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

any  part  of  it,  will  throw  revealing  light 
also  over  other  outlying  regions,  and  es- 
pecially over  those  dark  spiritual  places 
which  may  lie  contiguous  to  the  points 
which  some  science  is  lighting  up;  for 
the  different  spheres  and  orders  of  the 
cosmos,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest, 
are  not  so  many  separate  and  closed 
spaces,  but  the  universe  is  connected  in 
all  its  parts,  —  its  rooms  are  all  open- 
windowed,  and  its  successive  chambers 
lead  into  one  another;  —  there  are  many 
mansions  and  one  house  of  the  Father. 

What  is  thus  true  in  general  of  the 
value  of  any  single  science  for  the 
broader  illumination  of  life,  does  not 
hold  false  of  the  service  which  biology  is 
beginning  to  render  to  our  conception  of 
the  law  of  death.  If  we  may  discover 
and  carefully  observe  the  working  of  a 
power  favorable  to  life's  best  ends  in 
the  utilities  of  death  in  nature,  we  shall 
have  thereby  a  light  in  our  hands  by 
means  of  which  our  reason  may  possibly 
find  its  way  still  farther  through  the  mys- 
tery of  death  in  our  human  life.  It  is 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OP  DEATH   13 

true  that  under  the  existing  limitations 
of  our  earthly  experience  we  may  not  ex- 
pect to  reach  a  full  explanation  of  any  of 
the  great  laws  of  nature,  and  a  final  dis- 
covery of  the  one  benevolence  in  them 
all;  but  partial  explanations  are  better 
than  none, — the  child's  imaginations  may 
seize  upon  enough  of  the  truth  to  satisfy 
the  mind  of  the  child,  until  it  shall  put 
away  childish  things,  and  know  as  it  is 
known.  We  should  not  neglect  therefore 
as  insignificant  the  least  divine  hints 
which  may  have  been  dropped  amid  the 
silences  of  nature;  for  any  such  sugges- 
tions may  prove  a  very  present  help  to 
reason  while  faith  waits  for  the  final 
revelation. 

We  shall  seek,  therefore,  to  gather  up 
such  knowledge  as  recent  biological  sci- 
ence may  have  to  offer  concerning  the 
place  and  function  of  death  in  the  order 
of  nature;  and  then  we  shall  proceed  to 
inquire  whether  such  knowledge  has  any 
further  interpretative  value  in  relation  to 
the  law  of  our  human  subjection  to  death, 
and  its  attendant  suffering. 


14   ENTKANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

What  has  been  from  the  first  the  r61e 
appointed  for  death  to  play  in  the  unfold- 
ing drama  of  life  in  nature?  Looking 
down  through  the  history  of  ever-ad- 
vancing life  on  the  earth,  looking  back  to 
the  first  appearance  and  working  of  death, 
do  we  discover  any  signs  which  indicate 
that  death,  contrary  to  our  common  judg- 
ment of  it,  has  had  appointed  to  it  all  the 
while  a  benevolent  part,  that  it  has  not 
been  the  natural  enemy,  but  in  reality  a 
servant  of  life,  —  a  helpmeet  for  ever 
more  abounding,  higher,  and  happier  life 
on  the  earth? 

The  first  fact  which  has  been  observed 
is,  that  natural  death  does  not  appear  im- 
mediately at  the  beginning  of  the  history 
of  life  on  the  earth.  There  was  no  such 
thing  as  death,  or  at  least  nothing  like  a 
dead  body,  when  life  first  stirred,  and  for 
some  indefinite  period  after  life  began  to 
increase  and  multiply  in  earthly  matter. 

The  earliest  and  the  simplest  organism 
consists  of  a  single  cell.  That  unicellular 
organism  is  now  known  to  be  not  com- 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   15 

pletely  homogeneous,  or  without  begin- 
nings of  distinctions  between  its  parts; 
but  within  the  divine  simplicity  of  a 
single  cell,  the  infinitesimal  tracing  of 
whose  marvellous  structure  may  be  de- 
tected by  our  microscopes,  while  its  per- 
fect discrimination  defies  their  powers, 
life  begins  its  work,  never  henceforth  to 
cease,  of  organizing  matter  for  increasing 
sentience,  for  developing  function  and 
faculty,  and  for  final  aptitude  and  ser- 
vice for  self-conscious  thought  and  love. 
Our  human  interest  in  the  problem  of 
the  origin  and  the  destiny  of  life  may  be 
concentrated  in  the  study  of  this  earliest 
and  simplest  living  organism,  composed 
of  a  single  cell.  What  Tennyson  sang 
of  the  "Flower  in  the  crannied  wall" 
would  be  now  more  true  of  the  efflorescence 
of  life  in  the  little  cell  which  the  biologist 
plucks  "  out  of  the  crannies  " :  — 

"  I  hold  you  here,  root  and  all,  in  my  hand, 
Little  flower  —  but  if  I  could  understand 
What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 
I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is." 

If  we  could  read  the  whole  secret  of  that 


16   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

living  cell,  we  might  know  the  mystery 
of  our  origin  and  our  destiny.  Before  it 
or  within  it,  is  there  any  trace  to  be 
discovered  of  a  pre-existing  life,  or  any 
hint  to  be  found  of  life's  coming  glory? 
Does  life  in  its  earliest  known  beginnings 
contain  any  revelation  of  a  Spirit  that  was 
before  it,  or  disclose  any  mystery  of  Mes- 
sianic promise  of  its  coming  divinity? 

These  questions,  however,  concerning 
the  ultimate  origin  and  possible  spiritual 
direction  of  life,  we  hold  in  reserve  for  a 
later  place  in  our  present  plan  of  discus- 
sion; we  are  content  to  begin  with  a 
strictly  biological  conception  of  life  as  a 
peculiar  property  of  matter,  or,  as  it  has 
been  tersely  stated,  "  as  matter  in  a  pecu- 
liar state  or  condition."  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  origin  of  life,  we  may  read 
with  scientific  eye  its  story,  after  it  has 
come  to  write  upon  the  records  of  the 
earth  its  history  and  its  prophecy.  We 
may  notice  the  point  where,  so  far  as 
known,  death  first  enters  the  course  of 
life. 

That  which  actually  occurs,  after  life 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   17 

has  come  far  enough  out  of  the  unseen 
for  us  to  see  and  to  touch  it,  and  to 
keep  its  growth  under  the  eye  of  our 
science,  may  be  summarily  described  as 
follows:  The  first  one-celled  organism 
does  not  exist  for  a  season,  produce  an- 
other like  itself,  and  then  decay,  and  die, 
and  totally  disappear ;  it  does  nothing  of 
the  sort ;  the  one  thing  it  does  is,  not  to 
die,  but  to  live  on.  It  succeeds  in  living 
on,  and  on,  by  a  very  simple  yet  persis- 
tent process ;  for  after  a  while  it  divides 
itself  into  two  cells,  each  like  itself,  and 
thus  it  continues  to  exist,  living  in  these 
cells  a  double  life;  and  this  process  of 
simple  division  and  multiplication  is  car- 
ried on  for  a  number  of  successive  genera- 
tions without  the  appearance  of  any  dead 
ancestor,  or  of  anything  like  that  which 
we  mean  when  we  speak  of  a  dead  body. 
The  simplest  forms  of  life,  if  left  to  them- 
selves, if  left  under  favorable  conditions, 
and  without  accident,  to  follow  their 
natural  course,  do  not  die ;  they  bud  and 
divide,  they  increase  and  multiply. 

This  process  of  cell-division  and  multi- 


18   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

plication,  it  was  supposed  by  Weismann, 
might  naturally  continue  in  an  endless 
succession  among  the  unicellular  organ- 
isms; hence  he  held  that  such  organisms 
are  potentially  immortal.  As  the  entire 
substance  of  each  cell  passes  into  the  cells 
into  which  it  divides,  the  process  leaves 
behind  it  no  trace  of  anything  resembling 
a  dead  and  decaying  animal  form,  and 
hence  it  has  been  said  of  these  lowest 
organisms  that  "no  Amoeba  has  ever  lost 
an  ancestor  by  death." 

In  the  multicellular  organisms,  —  those 
composed  of  several  cells,  or  groups  of 
cells,  —  life  grows  more  complex.  The 
germinal  cells  —  those  which  bear  the 
hereditary  matter  and  the  continuous 
reproductive  power  of  life  —  are  distin- 
guished, according  to  Weismann's  theory, 
from  the  somatic  cells,  —  those  forming 
the  body,  which  support,  while  they  are 
themselves  fashioned  by,  the  germ-cells. 
These  latter  cells,  Weismann  supposed, 
in  their  differentiation  from  the  former, 
lost  the  power  of  indefinite  multiplication ; 
and  probably  for  the  benefit  of  the  other 


ENTRANCE  AND   USE   OP   DEATH        19 

germinal  cells,  which  contain  the  undying 
germ-plasm,  or  continuous,  hereditary  mat- 
ter of  life,  the  somatic  (body)  cells  became 
limited  in  the  number  of  their  possible 
divisions ;  that  is,  they  acquired  mortality, 
and  acquired  it  as  an  advantageous  adap- 
tation to  the  ends  of  life.  Hence  death 
first  appeared  among  the  multicellular  or- 
ganisms (Metazoa),  and  it  appeared  on 
account  of  its  utility.1 

This  supposition,  however,  of  the  poten- 
tial immortality  of  the  lowest  organisms 
through  an  endless  process  of  cell-division 
must  be  modified  by  the  results  of  later 
experiments  which  were  conducted  with 
much  painstaking  by  the  French  biologist, 
Maupas.2  His  investigations  consisted  of 
the  careful  culture  and  observation  of  suc- 
cessive generations  of  several  species  of 
the  unicellular  animals  (the  Ciliated  In- 
fusoria). He  was  able  to  follow  in  differ- 
ent cultures  the  history  of  from  two  to 
over  six  hundred  successive  generations  of 
these  minute  organisms.  Two  methods 
of  reproduction  had  previously  been  ob- 
served among  these  organisms,  the  one 


20       ENTRANCE  AND   USE  OF   DEATH 

by  fission,  —  an  asexual  method ;  and  the 
other  by  something  resembling  fertiliza- 
tion, through  the  meeting  and  partial 
blending  of  the  contents  of  two  cells,  —  a 
conjugation  of  cells,  —  after  which  each  of 
them  continued  to  multiply  by  dividing 
into  daughter  cells.  These  researches  of 
Maupas  showed  that  among  these  higher 
Protozoa  the  preservation  of  the  species  is 
maintained  by  occasional  intervention  of 
this  higher  method  of  conjugation,  and 
that  without  it  the  power  of  cell-division 
and  multiplication  becomes  enfeebled  and 
in  time  is  completely  lost.  "  The  evident 
result,"  remarks  Maupas,  "after  long  and 
fatiguing  experiments,  is  that  the  life  of 
the  species  with  the  Cilies  is  divided  into 
evolutionary  cycles,  having  each  for  its 
point  of  departure  an  individual  regen- 
erated, and  its  youth  renewed  by  a  sexual 
completion."* 

By  isolating  individual  Infusoria,  and 

thus  preventing  them  from  renewing  their 

power  of  reproduction  by  meeting  other 

more  distantly  related  forms  of  their  own 

*  Comptes  Rendus,  1887,  pp.  356-369. 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   21 

species,  Maupas  discovered  among  the 
descendants  of  the  isolated  individual 
increasing  signs  of  enfeebled  life,  senes- 
cence, and  loss  of  the  power  to  multiply; 
and  finally  the  succession  of  their  genera- 
tions came  to  a  complete  pause,  and  a  dead 
cell  was  left  at  the  end  of  it.*  At  this 
point  natural  death,  so  far  as  now  known, 
first  appears.  In  the  light  of  these  inves- 
tigations, life  is  seen  to  continue  through 
a  rudimental  form  of  sexual  rejuvenescence 
reaching  on  towards  further  and  still  more 
highly  organized  forms ;  while  life  in  its 
primitive  method  of  multiplication  by 
simple  cell-division  begins  to  droop,  and 
at  last  to  die.  A  double  line  of  life  is 
thus  observed:  the  one,  that  composed 
of  the  sexually  reinforced  cells,  branching 
up,  and  bringing  forth  more  fruit;  the 
other,  that  composed  of  the  isolated,  un- 
reinforced  cells,  continuing  for  a  while, 
but  at  length,  as  though  overshadowed  by 
the  more  fruitful  branch,  and  as  no  longer 

*  "  In  nature,  however,  this  limit  is  probably 
seldom  if  ever  reached."  —  Sedgwick  and  Wilson, 
General  Biology,  p.  170. 


22   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

advantageous  for  nature's  end  of  a  more 
abundant  life,  left  to  wither,  and  because 
no  longer  useful  to  come  at  length  to  an 
end.  This  end  of  this  less  advantageous 
method  of  the  propagation  of  life  is  death ; 
thus  nature  produces  and  abandons  the 
first  known  body  of  death  in  the  history 
of  life. 

These  researches  of  Maupas  show  that 
death  may  have  entered  into  the  course  of 
life,  earlier  than  Weismann  had  at  first 
supposed,  among  the  simpler  unicellular 
organisms.  If  their  universal  validity 
should  be  admitted,  they  would  compel  us 
to  modify  the  supposition  of  the  immor- 
tality of  the  Protozoa  by  limiting  it,  among 
the  Infusoria,  to  such  organisms  as  are 
kept  in  the  cycle  of  an  ever  self-rejuvenat- 
ing life.  Death  would  overtake  those  (if 
there  are  in  nature  any  such)  who  fall  out 
of  this  improved  cyclic  method  of  self- 
reproducing  life.  Some  doubt,  however, 
seems  to  be  thrown  over  the  universal 
validity  of  these  experiments;  and  even 
if  we  admit  that  they  indicate  a  general 
law  of  the  continuation  of  life  among  the 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   23 

higher  classes  of  the  Infusoria,  they  do  not 
necessarily  prove,  as  Maupas  himself  was 
careful  to  observe,  that  a  similar  cyclic 
rejuvenescence  obtains  among  still  lower 
and  simpler  organisms.  Simpler  forms 
may  (upon  Weismaun's  theory  of  the  con- 
tinuous germ-plasm  they  must)  possess 
indefinite  power  of  cell-division  without 
any  interruption  by  death.*  But  these 
investigations,  however  they  may  modify 
the  original  supposition  of  the  immortality 
of  all  the  Protozoa,  serve  to  determine  more 
exactly  the  point  in  nature  where  death 
enters ;  and  they  also  throw  new  light  over 
the  earliest  working  and  use  of  death 
among  the  simplest  organisms.3 

An  important  fact  of  far-reaching  sig- 
nificance, which  these  microscopic  re- 
searches reveal,  is  the  connection  between 
the  first  observed  occurrence  of  death  and 
the  earliest  observed  occurrence  of  sex,  or 
something  resembling  sexuality  in  nature. 

*  "It  is  not  known  whether  or  not  the  Amoeba 
ever  dies  of  old  age."  — Sedgwick  and  Wilson,  General 
Biology,  p.  166. 


24   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

Their  intimate  connection  in  the  time  of 
their  appearance  does  not  show  that  the 
one  is  the  cause  of  the  other;  but  it  does 
show  that  both  are  introduced  together  in 
the  process  of  life  as  co-operative  factors 
for  the  furtherance  of  life's  mission  on  the 
earth.  Death  enters,  so  far  as  now  known, 
in  connection  with  the  alternation  between 
two  methods  of  reproduction  and  multipli- 
cation of  life;  it  occurs  naturally  in  the 
course  of  the  change  from  the  asexual 
method  of  simple  cell-division  to  the 
method  of  fertilization,  which  in  time 
comes  to  be  nature's  dominant  method  not 
only  of  preserving  life,  but  also  of  giv- 
ing it  variety,  richness,  and  plastic  power 
of  adaptation  to  different  environments.4 
With  the  rudiments  of  sex  appear  also  the 
beginnings  of  death.  With  the  entrance 
of  the  new  method  for  the  enrichment  and 
diversification  of  selected  life  through  sex, 
enters  also  the  law  of  decay  and  death  for 
that  remainder  of  life  which  is  not  caught 
up  into  this  higher  potency  of  nature's 
fertilization.  In  this  first  discrimination 
of  nature  between  the  reinforced  cells, 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   25 

destined  to  live,  and  the  unrejuvenated 
cells,  destined  to  die,  there  is  seen  to  be  a 
resemblance  to  the  last  judgment  of  life, 
as  the  Scripture  describes  it:  "Then  shall 
two  be  in  the  field ;  the  one  shall  be  taken, 
and  the  other  left."  So  death  in  the  ear- 
liest judgment  of  life  signifies  that  which 
is  left,  and  left  as  the  least  available  organ 
for  life. 

Death  by  its  timely  coming  completes 
nature's  first  work  of  keeping  in  the  field 
the  form  capable  of  the  better  life  and  its 
further  development. 

Death  is  thus  discovered  to  be  a  second- 
ary, and  not  a  primary,  event  in  the  course 
of  life.  It  did  not  come  in  at  once  as  the 
necessary  termination  of  the  first  individu- 
alized form  or  organ  of  life;  for,  as  Mau- 
pas'  investigations  show,  these  simplest 
organisms  may  survive  without  a  dead 
ancestor  among  them  for  at  least  a  large 
number  of  generations.  The  reign  of 
death  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  univer- 
sal  from  the  beginning;  for  whole  cycles 
of  infusorian  life  escape  it.  Its  reign 


26        ENTRANCE   AND   TTSE   OF   DEATH 

began  with  the  coming  of  a  new,  more 
powerful  dynasty  of  life.  From  the  begin- 
ning life  was  more  than  death.  The  law 
of  life  has  been  the  dominant  law ;  the  law 
of  death  was  at  first  partial  and  secondary. 
Moreover,  the  known  facts  seem  to  justify 
the  assertion  of  some  biologists  that  death 
may  be  regarded  as  itself  a  product  of  life. 
"It  is  more  probable,"  remarks  Mr.  Cope, 
"  that  death  is  a  consequence  of  life,  rather 
than  that  the  living  is  a  product  of  the 
non-living."* 

This  view  of  the  secondary  and  subordi- 
nate function  of  death,  which  is  thus  indi- 
cated by  our  knowledge  of  its  earliest 
working,  is  not  to  be  set  aside  by  any 
explanation  which  may  be  offered  of  the 
ultimate  cause,  or  causes,  which  render 
the  entrance  of  death  possible  in  nature.6 
It  is  an  unproved  assumption  that  there  is 
any  inherent  necessity  of  death  in  the 
nature  of  organization,  or  in  some  inevit- 
able limitations  of  the  recuperative  and 
reproductive  powers  of  life.  A  possibil- 
ity, it  is  true,  for  the  original  appearance 

*  Primary  Factors  of  Organic  Evolution,  p.  483. 


ENTRANCE   AND   USE  OF   DEATH       27 

of  natural  death  may  be  inherent  in  the 
instability,  or  in  some  other  unknown  con- 
ditions, of  the  molecular  matter  of  life; 
but  the  possibility  of  death  is  not  a  neces- 
sity for  it,  as  the  continuance  of  the  germ 
of  life  from  one  form  to  another  shows,  or 
as  the  self-rejuvenescent  conjugations  of 
the  Infusoria,  according  to  Maupas'  inves- 
tigations, demonstrate. 

Nature's  possibilities  are  not  always  her 
necessities.  A  physical  possibility  of 
death  may  be  converted  into  a  natural 
necessity  for  it  under  the  operation  of 
other  laws,  like  that  of  natural  selection, 
and  as  an  adaptation  to  other  ends  of 
nature.  With  regard  to  the  ultimate 
cause  of  death,  biology  finds  itself  before 
very  much  the  same  question  which  con- 
fronts it  in  the  study  of  the  cause  of  varia- 
tion. We  have  as  yet  too  little  exact 
knowledge  to  enable  our  science  to  settle 
confidently  upon  any  one  theory  of  the 
original  cause  of  variation;  but  uncer- 
tainty with  regard  to  the  factors  which 
produce  variations  does  not  prevent  us 
from  recognizing  the  function  and  service 


28   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

of  variability  as  a  primal  principle  of  life. 
So  uncertainty  with  regard  to  any  primal 
possibilities  of  death,  which  nature  may 
have  left  open,  need  not  prevent  us  from 
recognizing  its  utility  as  a  means  of 
further  life  when  it  does  find  entrance 
into  the  course  of  nature.6 

From  these  observed  facts,  therefore, 
concerning  the  origin  and  earliest  work- 
ing of  natural  death,  we  may  proceed  to 
further  reasonings  concerning  its  future 
mission  in  the  process  of  the  higher  or- 
ganization of  life.  It  is  seen  to  be  an 
ever-recurring  step  of  nature  in  the  ascent 
of  life. 

As  life  becomes  more  organized  and 
complex,  death  prevails.  It  comes  to 
reign  on  earth,  because  it  comes  to  serve. 
At  length  in  the  history  of  life  a  living 
form  arose,  so  multicellular  and  so  well 
organized,  that  it  ceased  to  continue  the 
course  of  life  simply  by  dividing  and  mul- 
tiplying itself  into  daughter  cells ;  it  had 
acquired  the  power  of  giving  up  its  life 
for  another ;  it  died  in  order  that  its  off- 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   29 

spring  might  continue  its  life  in  forms 
struggling  to  still  higher  organization, 
and  better  fitted  to  survive  while  it  must 
perish.7  One  parent  form  passes  away  in 
order  that  others  may  catch  up  the  motion 
of  life,  and  in  turn  transmit  to  others 
life's  rhythm  and  joy.  Thus  death  comes 
in  to  help,  and  not  merely  to  hurt;  to 
help  life  further  on  and  higher  up,  not  to 
put  a  stop  to  life.  It  evidently  became 
advantageous  to  life  as  a  whole  that  cer- 
tain primitive  forms  should  be  left  by  the 
way  to  perish.  The  column  of  the  living 
marches  on,  though  individual  organisms 
fall  by  the  wayside;  life,  ever  regnant, 
continues  through  death,  and  past  death, 
on  to  more  life  and  richer.  In  other  words, 
in  the  first  struggle  of  animate  exis- 
tence, by  bringing  into  the  field  regiments 
of  better  equipped  forms,  life  scores  a  vic- 
tory, although  to  win  it,  it  must  leave  its 
dead  upon  the  field. 

This  fact  of  the  utility  of  death  for  life 
will  become  still  further  intelligible,  if  we 
attempt  to  conceive  what  might  have  been 
the  result  if  death  had  not  kept  the  stream 


30   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

of  life  from  clogging  up  and  becoming 
stagnant.  For  if  death  had  not  entered, 
then  the  more  finely  organized,  the  more 
masterful,  and  the  fairer  forms  of  life 
would  not  have  appeared.  There  would 
have  been  no  stimulus  and  response  of  life 
for  their  production.  There  would  have 
been  no  call  for  their  appearance  under  the 
law  of  natural  selection ;  they  would  not 
have  been  needed  for  the  maintenance  of 
life.  Death  breaks  up  the  crust  of  nature 
so  that  the  germinant  life  may  spring  up, 
and  grow  into  the  light.  Death  ends  the 
monotony  of  the  same  kind  of  continued 
life,  and  gives  it  occasion  for  a  new  spring, 
and  existence  upon  a  higher  level.  The 
course  of  life  would  have  been  arrested, 
had  not  death  come  with  helpful  hand  to 
clear  away  products  of  life  no  longer  use- 
ful, to  remove  outworn  and  mutilated 
forms,  and  to  let  the  deepening  stream 
flow  on.  If  we  suppose  other  laws  and 
processes  of  nature  to  remain  such  as  we 
know  them  to  be,  we  may  assert  that  there 
could  have  been  made  on  this  earth  no 
garden,  no  flowers,  no  birds,  no  leafy  trees 


ENTRANCE  AND   USE  OF   DEATH        31 

for  them  to  sing  in,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
entrance  and  the  ministry  of  death;  had 
death  never  been  sent  along  life's  way  to 
take  from  life  its  useless  burdens,  and  to 
set  its  energies  free  for  better  adaptations 
and  results  ever  more  fair  and  fruitful. 
Man  himself  might  not  have  been  made  of 
the  dust  of  the  earth,  if  that  dust  had  not 
been  mingled  of  the  elements  of  the  dead 
forms  which  were  before  him.  We  owe 
our  human  birth  to  death  in  nature.  The 
earth  before  us  has  died  that  we  might 
live.  We  are  the  living  children  of  a 
world  that  has  died  for  us. 

Biology  furnishes  thus  to  philosophy  a 
suggestion  of  profound  truth,  and  of  far- 
reaching  significance.  For  if  we  once 
recognize  the  adaptation  and  use  of  any 
factor  in  the  organic  world,  we  are  already 
within  sight  of  some  rational  apprehension 
of  its  benevolent  function.  This  concep- 
tion of  the  natural  utility  of  death  in  its 
original  working  throws  a  new  light  into 
one  of  the  dark  places  of  natural  theology. 
In  the  mechanism  of  nature  it  means  that 
death  itself  is  one  of  the  methods  or  con- 


32   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

trivances  which  nature  has  devised  and 
steadily  uses  in  order  to  carry  her  work- 
manship on,  and  to  make  finer  products. 
It  means  that  death  in  the  course  of  nature 
is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  disaster,  —  the 
breaking  of  a  wheel  or  parting  of  a  belt  in 
nature's  workshop,  — but  rather  as  the  in- 
troduction of  a  new  device  for  turning  out 
improved  manufactures.  As  an  original 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  death  is  to  be 
regarded  as  a  mark  of  beneficence  rather 
than  as  a  natural  sign  of  evil.  It  has  been 
brought  about,  as  other  adaptations  have 
arisen,  in  order  that  nature  may  do  better 
work;  just  as  the  ear  or  the  eye  are 
adaptations  which  have  been  fashioned 
and  achieved  in  nature,  in  order  that  the 
range  and  the  joyousness  of  animal  life 
might  be  enhanced.  So  death  as  an  adap- 
tation in  the  divine  economy  of  nature  is 
introduced  as  a  means  of  life,  of  ever-in- 
creasing and  happier  life. 

There  is  another  sign  of  the  natural 
utility  of  death  to  be  found  farther  down 
in  the  course  of  life,  which  we  proceed 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   33 

next  to  point  out.  The  duration  of  life 
for  the  individual  members  of  different 
species  seems  to  have  been  determined 
upon  the  principle  of  utility,  for  the 
preservation  of  the  species.  The  length 
of  the  average  lifetime  among  the  higher 
organisms  may,  to  a  considerable  extent, 
be  measured  upon  a  scale  of  advantages  to 
the  species.  We  have  just  been  observing 
the  fact  that  near  the  unicellular  beginnings 
of  life  death  slips  in  for  the  benefit  of  life 
on  its  way  up  to  higher  organization ;  we 
adduce  now  the  further  consideration  that, 
after  a  considerable  degree  of  animal  or- 
ganization has  been  reached,  death  contin- 
ues to  work  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
best  issues  of  life ;  and  it  works  thus  benefi- 
cently for  the  species  by  regular  inter- 
ventions at  periods  of  time  which  are,  on 
the  whole,  most  adapted  to  the  purpose 
of  preserving  the  several  species.  The 
length  of  the  life  of  the  golden  eagle,  for 
instance,  seems  to  sustain  some  arithmeti- 
cal proportion  to  the  time  in  which  the 
individual  eagle  should  be  permitted  by 
nature  to  live,  if  the  species  of  eagle  is  to 


34       ENTRANCE   AND   USE   OF   DEATH 

be  preserved.  The  single  bird  is  naturally 
permitted  to  live  as  long  as  it  is  expedient 
in  order  to  secure  enough  eagle's  eggs, 
and  to  save  enough  young  eagles,  to  keep 
some  eagles  always  in  existence  circling 
in  the  air  or  perched  on  loftiest  crag. 

Upon  this  principle  of  the  advantage  or 
disadvantage  to  the  species  of  a  longer  or 
shorter  lifetime  for  the  individual  organ- 
isms, the  duration  of  life  seems  in  some 
instances  to  have  been  lengthened,  while 
in  other  instances  it  has  been  shortened ; 
sometimes,  also,  in  the  same  species  the 
lifetime  of  one  sex  has  been  prolonged, 
while  the  brief  day  of  existence  for  the 
other  sex  has  been  hastened  to  its  end. 
The  females  of  one  kind  of  moths  rarely 
live  for  more  than  three  or  four  days ;  but 
"  the  males  which  fly  swiftly  in  the  forests, 
seeking  for  the  less  abundant  females,  live 
for  a  much  longer  period,  certainly  from 
eight  to  fourteen  days."  On  the  other 
hand,  the  queen  bee  lives  two  or  three 
years,  and  often  longer;  but  the  drones 
live  only  four  or  five  months,  —  as  long 
as  it  is  of  any  use  to  the  colonies  of  bees 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   35 

for  the  drones  to  exist.  "  Their  value  to 
the  colony  ceases  with  the  nuptial  flight, 
and  from  the  point  of  view  of  utility  it  is 
easy  to  understand  why  their  lives  should 
be  so  short."  There  are  instances,  like- 
wise, in  which  the  lifetime  of  both  sexes 
seems  to  have  been  shortened ;  and  the  ex- 
planation is  the  same,  that  on  the  whole 
the  shortened  lifetime  was  more  advan- 
tageous to  the  existence  of  the  species,  and 
that  a  longer  time  would  have  been  use- 
less. Here,  also,  in  determining  the  dura- 
tion of  the  time  granted  to  her  many 
children  for  existence  on  this  earth,  nature 
makes  no  haste  or  waste,  but  gives  to  each 
that  which  is  best.  The  may-flies  furnish 
an  instance  of  the  reduction  of  the  lifetime 
to  a  brief  hour  of  existence,  which  is  long 
enough,  however,  to  insure  a  constant  suc- 
cession of  swarms  of  ephemeral  insects 
over  the  pools  of  water.  Thus  it  may  be 
regarded  as  a  general  principle  of  life, 
which  further  researches  will  not  discard, 
but  illustrate  and  confirm,  that  death 
comes  to  different  species  when  it  is  best 
for  the  species  that  it  should  intervene; 


36   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

when,  that  is,  all  natural  advantages  and 
disadvantages  taken  together,  it  is  most 
expedient  that  the  individual  should  give 
up  its  separate  existence.  Natural  selec- 
tion, which  is  nature's  method  of  promot- 
ing the  best  interests  of  life,  has  seized 
upon  death  as  a  means  of  doing  further 
good  work  for  the  benefit  of  life. 

Other  considerations,  such  as  the  size  of 
an  organism,  its  complexity  of  structure, 
its  physiological  condition,  and  other 
relations  to  the  sum-total  of  animated 
existence,  may  have  had  influence  in  de- 
termining the  lifetime  of  different  species ; 
but  the  total  result  of  all  these  deter- 
minants of  the  period  of  life,  and  the  neces- 
sity at  stated  times  of  the  intervention 
of  death,  may  be  expressed  in  terms  of 
utility.  The  equation  of  the  life-periods 
of  species  may  be  written  as  an  equation 
of  known  and  unknown  utilities. 

From  these  curious  studies  and  these 
intimate  researches  into  the  nature  and 
the  causes  of  death  among  the  more  highly 
organized  forms  of  life,  one  definite  fact 
seems  further  to  become  clear  with  refer- 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   37 

ence  to  the  natural  utility  of  death.  It 
is  seen  to  prevail  in  connection  with  an 
increasing  division  of  labor  among  the 
parts  of  an  organism.  In  the  least  differ- 
entiated cell,  no  such  division  of  labor 
could  exist.  Such  a  cell  would  be  a  whole 
being  to  its  environment  at  every  point  of 
contact  with  it.  It  would  owe  its  success 
to  precisely  the  same  principle  as  that  to 
which  an  English  statesman  once  said  his 
success  in  life  was  due,  —  that  of  "  being 
a  whole  man  to  one  thing  at  a  time." 
Because  it  is  so  unspecialized,  the  one- 
celled  organism  (although  not  without 
some  structure)  can  readily  divide  without 
loss  of  life ;  the  lowest  organisms  also  may 
reproduce  parts  which  are  mutilated  or 
lost.  To  some  extent,  but  with  decreas- 
ing power,  the  higher  organisms  still  pos- 
sess this  facility  to  repair  or  to  replace 
injured  parts.  But  this  power  of  self- 
reproduction  decreases  and  finally  comes 
to  an  end,  as  organization  grows  more 
complex  and  many-sided.  The  higher 
animals  stand  in  manifold  relations  to 
their  environment.  The  body  of  an  ani- 


38   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

mal  is  a  mechanism  in  which  the  principle 
of  division  of  labor  has  been  carried  to  a 
high  degree  of  complexity  and  perfection. 
Now  it  is  worthy  of  further  note  that  the 
function  which  nature  has  given  death  to 
fulfil,  seems  to  be  connected  with  this  in- 
crease of  the  division  of  labor  between 
different  parts  of  the  higher  organisms. 
The  prevalence  of  death  accompanies  this 
increased  specialization  of  function;  and 
the  function  of  death  may  further  be  said 
to  be  one  of  the  natural  means  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  this  increasing  differen- 
tiation of  organs  and  division  of  labor, 
which  in  turn  are  necessary  to  the  full 
development  and  perfection  of  life.  This 
consideration  leads  us,  however,  directly 
towards  another,  and  still  more  interesting 
suggestion,  which  recent  biology  may  offer 
to  our  moral  philosophy  concerning  the 
nature  and  use  of  death. 

Some  signs  may  be  discovered  of  a  sacri- 
ficial service  of  death  in  the  natural  course 
of  life.  Some  living  cells  seem  to  have 
been  born  in  order  that  they  might  give 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   39 

up  their  life  to  other  cells.  In  fulfilling 
their  appointed  functions,  they  themselves 
suffer  dissolution.  They  complete  their 
work  by  dying.  Hence  our  naturalists 
sometimes  speak  of  the  principle  of  sacri- 
fice as  one  of  the  great  principles  of  as- 
cending life  in  the  economy  of  nature. 
We  find  a  trace  or  suggestion  of  this  sacri- 
ficial method  in  the  lowliest  beginnings, 
and  amid  the  simplest  functions,  of  organ- 
ized life.  Instances  of  animal  devotion 
are  familiar;  and  we  are  accustomed  to 
find  an  instinctive  anticipation,  at  least, 
of  the  moral  law  of  sacrifice  in  the  habit 
which  impels  many  wild  animals  to  pro- 
tect the  lives  of  their  offspring  at  the  cost 
of  their  own.  But  our  biology  carries 
this  natural  principle  of  sacrificial  function 
deeper  down,  and  farther  back,  into  the 
elements  and  fundamental  processes  of 
life.  Our  physiology  has  its  substitu- 
tionary  theories  of  the  replacement  of  cells 
in  the  discharge  of  many  vital  functions. 
Indeed,  the  specific  function  of  certain 
cells,  as  in  the  secretory  glands,  for  in- 
stance, seems  to  be  to  dissolve,  and  to  be 


40   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

cast  off,  for  the  benefit  of  the  organism. 
How  these  cells  acquired  this  natural  vir- 
tue of  self-effacement ;  under  what  process 
and  discipline  of  kindly  nature  living 
cells,  whose  inner  energy  prompts  and 
stimulates  them  to  continuous  self-preser- 
vation, achieved  this  habit  of  becoming  re- 
jected and  despised,  perishing  themselves, 
while  the  whole  body  survives  and  grows, 
—  this  is  hardly  as  yet  a  matter  of  scien- 
tific conjecture ;  but  the  sacrificial  property 
which  such  self-effacing  cells  have  ac- 
quired as  their  specific  character  is  a 
matter  of  observation. 

We  should  be  careful  not  to  transfer 
moral  quality  from  our  self-consciousness 
to  processes  of  nature  in  the  sentient  life 
beneath  us;  it  should  be  regarded  as  an 
abuse,  rather  than  a  profitable  use  of 
natural  analogies,  to  employ  the  words 
which  express  the  culmination  of  our 
supreme  life  of  love,  when  we  would 
describe  animal  instincts  or  physiological 
movements,  which  may  nevertheless  bear 
suggestive  and  sometimes  even  striking 
resemblances  to  the  higher  laws  of  our 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   41 

spiritual  nature.  To  assume  an  identity 
between  these  lower  and  these  higher 
functions  of  life  would  not  be  to  carry 
up  natural  law  into  the  spiritual  world, 
but  rather  to  bring  the  spiritual  into  bond- 
age again  to  the  physical.  The  begin- 
nings of  altruism  in  the  social  instincts 
and  habits  of  many  animals  are  not  in 
themselves  a  moral  process,  as  the  begin- 
nings of  sensibility  in  the  movements  of 
protoplasm  are  not  an  intellectual  process ; 
but  the  lower  may  form  a  physical  basis 
for  the  higher,  and  the  beginning  may 
prefigure  the  eventual  issue  of  life;  for 
both  the  lowest  and  the  highest,  both  the 
laws  of  motion  and  sensibility  in  the 
humble  origins,  and  the  laws  of  conscious- 
ness and  freedom  in  the  diviner  issues  of 
life,  proceed  from  the  same  source,  bear 
marks  of  the  same  ideal,  and  are  evidence 
of  the  same  immanent  Intelligence,  in 
which  all  things  are  rationally  wrought 
and  directed. 

We  adduce,  therefore,  at  this  point 
this  further  fact  of  a  principle  of  life 
to  be  discerned  among  the  constituent 


42   ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH 

cells  of  some  tissues,  which  may  be  de- 
scribed as  substitutional  and  sacrificial, 
not  because  of  any  moral  import  which 
may  be  imputed  to  it  from  our  self-con- 
scious life,  but  because  it  offers  further 
and  direct  evidence  of  the  natural  utility 
of  death.  Individual  cells  cease  to  exist, 
and  have,  in  some  way  not  as  yet  suffi- 
ciently investigated,  acquired  the  habit  of 
ceasing  to  exist,  in  order  that  the  welfare 
of  the  organism  as  one  whole  may  be 
maintained.  Primitive  sacrificial  death 
in  nature  thus  falls  under  the  law  of  the 
survival  of  life. 

We  may  now  sum  up  in  one  general 
statement  the  facts,  and  the  direct  sug- 
gestions of  the  facts,  which  our  recent 
biological  study  brings  within  reach  of 
our  reasonings.  We  find  that  death  has 
many  uses  in  the  economy  of  nature ;  that 
it  is  indeed  so  useful  that  life  itself  has 
to  call  forth  death  to  help  it  forward  on 
its  endless  way.  We  discover  that  natural 
death  is  only  in  appearance  an  enemy; 
that  in  reality  it  is  a  servant  and  helpmeet 


ENTRANCE  AND  USE  OF  DEATH   43 

of  life.  We  might  go  so  far  as  to  assert 
the  seeming  paradox  that,  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  early  entrance  of  death,  life 
itself  might  not  have  risen  to  its  full 
potency,  and  in  its  best  and  fairer  forms 
it  could  not  have  continued  to  exist.  In 
consequence  of  death,  life  develops,  and 
the  ministry  of  death  is  throughout  a 
service  for  life,  —  for  the  increasing  ful- 
filment of  life's  promise,  and  for  the  at- 
tainment of  the  greatest  possible  variety, 
richness,  beauty,  and  universal  joyousness 
of  life.  The  one  regnant,  radiant  fact  of 
nature  is  life,  —  and  death  enters  and 
follows  as  a  servant  for  life's  sake. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  PATH  OF  LIFE  THROUGH  THE  EVIL 
IN  NATURE 

WE  pause  for  a  moment  at  this  point 
in  our  inquiry  to  look  abroad  over 
the  facts  and  evidences  of  nature  now  open 
before  us,  and  to  observe  whether  we  have 
thus  far  gained  any  position  of  advantage 
from  which  to  survey  more  intelligently 
the  whole  problem  of  natural  evil.  We 
have  not  at  this  point  attained  by  any 
means  the  last  height  of  nature's  great 
argument  for  life  and  immortality;  but  we 
have  reached  a  higher  ground  from  which 
we  may  comprehend  in  a  larger  horizon 
the  province  of  evil  in  nature. 

Moral  philosophy  has  generally  hitherto 
been  content  to  enter  a  plea  of  abatement 
in  behalf  of  the  benevolent  design  of  nat- 
ure against  the  impeachment  of  it  by  the 
prevalence  of  evil  in  the  world.  Ethics 
44 


THE  PATH  OF  LIFE  THROUGH  EVIL      45 

has  borrowed  from  natural  science  mate- 
rials for  its  argument  in  extenuation  of 
the  sufferings  which  are  involved  in  the 
struggle  of  life,  and  in  the  seemingly  cruel 
necessities  of  death.  But  there  has  been 
lacking  some  one  single,  clear  principle 
of  justification  for  the  entrance  of  death 
into  nature,  and  the  further  possibilities 
of  suffering  connected  with  death.  Pleas 
of  extenuating  circumstances  may  relieve, 
but  only  the  discovery  of  some  all-perva- 
sive principle  of  action,  in  itself  clearly 
benevolent,  can  justify  the  temporary  ex- 
istence of  suffering ;  the  final  moral  expla- 
nation of  natural  evil  will  be  furnished 
by  the  revelation  of  some  law  of  divine 
procedure  in  the  evolution  of  life  and  its 
fruits,  which  in  itself  shall  be  seen  to  be 
rational,  and  which  will  be  recognized  in 
its  whole  working  and  issue  as  a  law  of 
love.  Our  theologies  have  always  in  their 
several  ways  been  seeking  after  such  a 
theodicy  —  a  justification  on  some  clear 
moral  principle  of  the  general  procedure 
of  God  in  the  course  of  nature.  Of  late 
years  our  evolutionary  science  has  brought 


46  THE  PATH  OF  LIFE  THROUGH  EVIL 

fresh  eyes  to  the  old  task  of  discerning  the 
good  at  the  heart  of  things  evil;  and  in 
general,  evolution  may  be  said  to  furnish 
a  thoroughly  hopeful  philosophy  of  natural 
evil;  it  finds  argument  of  increasing  good 
in  the  development  of  nature,  and  becomes 
optimistic  even  in  its  last  outlook  over 
the  dissolution  of  worlds  and  the  passing 
away  of  this  present  order  of  nature. 

The  mitigating  circumstances  which  may 
be  adduced  in  alleviation  of  the  hard  facts 
of  the  existence  of  suffering  and  death 
throughout  the  animal  kingdom  have  been 
happily  put  by  Mr.  Wallace  in  his  remarks 
upon  the  "  Ethical  Aspect  of  the  Struggle 
for  Existence."*  He  holds  that  the 
amount  of  animal  suffering  is  "greatly 
exaggerated;  that  the  supposed  'tor- 
ments '  and  '  miseries '  of  animals  have 
little  real  existence,  but  are  the  reflection 
of  the  imagined  sensations  of  cultivated 
men  and  women  in  similar  circumstances ; 
and  that  the  amount  of  actual  suffering, 
caused  by  the  struggle  for  existence  among 
animals,  is  altogether  insignificant."  In 
*  Darwinism,  pp.  36-40. 


THE  PATH   OF   LIFE  THROUGH  EVIL     47 

evidence  of  this  more  cheerful  view  of 
animal  suffering,  he  adduces  the  facts  that 
"  animals  are  entirely  spared  the  pain  we 
suffer  in  the  anticipation  of  death  —  a  pain 
far  greater,  in  most  cases,  than  the  reality  " ; 
that  consequently  animal  life  is  a  perpetual 
enjoyment  without  "any  serious  dread"; 
that  violent  deaths,  which  are  the  rule 
under  nature's  general  law  of  prey,  "if 
not  too  prolonged,  are  painless  and  easy  " ; 
death,  likewise,  through  gradual  weakness 
and  exhaustion  is  not  necessarily  painful. 
In  the  other  scale,  outweighing  the  suffer- 
ing, Mr.  Wallace  puts  the  enjoyments 
which  nature  has  provided  for  the  lives  of 
most  animals,  such  as  their  coming  into 
existence  usually  at  the  time  of  year  when 
"food  is  most  plentiful,  and  the  climate 
most  suitable,"  and  the  "continual  round 
of  healthy  excitement  and  exercise,  alter- 
nating with  complete  repose,"  which  is  the 
rule  of  life  among  animals  as  they  reach 
their  maturity.  "  We  must  therefore  con- 
clude," he  remarks,  "that  animals,  as  a 
rule,  enjoy  all  the  happiness  of  which  they 
are  capable.  . . .  Thus  the  poet's  picture  of 


48     THE   PATH   OF   LIFE   THROUGH  EVIL 

'  Nature  red  in  tooth  and  claw 
With  ravine,' 

is  a  picture  the  evil  of  which  is  read  into 
it  by  our  imaginations,  the  reality  being 
made  up  of  full  and  happy  lives,  usually 
terminated  by  the  quickest  and  least  pain- 
ful of  deaths." 

To  this  appeal  which  Mr.  Wallace  makes 
to  the  facts  of  animal  happiness  on  the 
whole,  may  be  added  some  further  con- 
siderations which  Mr.  Drummond  has 
pointed  out  in  his  chapter  on  "The 
Struggle  for  Life."  *  He  reminds  us  that, 
when  it  is  said  an  animal  struggles,  "all 
that  is  really  meant  is  that  it  lives ; "  that 
"  with  exceptions,  the  fight  is  a  fair  fight. 
As  a  rule  there  is  no  hate  in  it,  but  only 
Hunger."  He  lays  stress  upon  the  fact 
that  essentially  the  struggle  for  life  is 
"the  attempt  to  solve  the  fundamental 
problem  of  all  life — Nutrition."  And, 
what  is  still  more  important,  Mr.  Drum- 
mond urges  that  the  principle  of  the 
struggle  for  life  itself  undergoes,  and  is 
destined  to  undergo  still  further  changes ; 
*  Ascent  of  Man,  pp.  203  sq. 


THE   PATH   OF   LIFE   THEOUGH   EVIL     49 

every  animal  feature  of  it,  in  enlarging 
regions,  is  "discredited,  discouraged,  or 
driven  away";  and  "the  amelioration  of 
the  Struggle  for  Life  is  the  most  certain 
prophecy  of  science."  * 

The  further  apology  for  natural  evil, 
which  may  be  made  from  the  side  of  moral 
philosophy,  has  been  argued  with  much 
particularity,  as  well  as  force  and  beauty, 
by  Mr.  Martineau  in  his  discussion  of 
"Alleged  Blemishes  in  Nature."!  He 
argues  with  Plato  that  the  crowning  glory 
of  creative  Power  is  its  "  ungrudgingness" ; 
that  the  waste  of  life  does  not  involve  any 
moral  "breach  of  promise"  on  nature's 
part;  that  an  incidental  end  realized  by 
her  method  is  "  the  investiture  of  the  world 
with  a  glorious  exuberance,  furnishing  it  as 
a  majestic  palace  with  endless  galleries  of 
art  and  beauty,  instead  of  as  a  cheap  board- 
ing-school, with  bare  benches  and  scant 
meals."  He  lifts  the  argument  with  nat- 
ural evil  up  into  the  higher  terms  of  the 
"moral  structure  and  discipline  of  this  life. " 

*  Ascent  of  Man,  pp.  211,  212. 

t  A  Stirfy  of  Religion,  Vol.  I.,  p.  330. 


50     THE  PATH   OF   LIFE  THROUGH   EVIL 

After  all  this  is  said,  we  still  miss, 
however,  one  clear  principle  of  moral  pro- 
cedure, in  relation  to  which  all  kinds  and 
degrees  of  natural  evil  may  be  surveyed, 
estimated,  and  finally  judged.  To  gain  a 
sure  and  clear  apprehension  of  some  unify- 
ing and  all- justifying  principle  of  benevo- 
lence in  nature  and  throughout  the  history 
of  life,  may  be  a  spiritual  achievement  far 
too  high  as  yet  for  the  human  reason  to 
compass,  or  for  the  human  heart  to  rest 
in  with  untroubled  trust.  The  Omnis- 
cient alone  can  reveal  the  full  and  final 
theodicy.  There  are  many  questions  with 
regard  to  which  even  devoutest  believers 
must  accept  Erasmus'  saying  that  we  must 
let  them  wait,  not  to  the  next  Ecumenical 
Council,  but  "  till  the  veil  is  removed  and 
we  see  God  face  to  face." 

Without  presuming,  however,  that  we 
may  be  able  to  gain  through  the  expansion 
of  knowledge  a  scientific  comprehension  of 
the  whole  mystery  of  evil,  any  research  is 
welcome  which  indicates  that  some  intel- 
ligent and  straightforward  method  of  pro- 
cedure has  been  followed  by  nature  through 


THE   PATH    OF    LIFE    THROUGH   EVIL     51 

the  mystery  of  evil.  We  should  not 
lightly  esteem  even  the  least  facts  which 
at  any  intermediate  point  may  indicate  the 
direction  towards  final  good  of  the  long, 
winding,  but  ever-onward  path  of  life  and 
death  which  nature  is  following.  Do  the 
facts,  then,  which  recent  biology  is  open- 
ing to  our  further  inquiry,  cast  any  inter- 
preting light  upon  the  function  and  use 
for  life  of  natural  evil  ? 

It  may  be  urged  without  exaggeration 
of  its  significance  that  to  establish  clearly 
a  law  of  utility  in  the  function  of  death, 
would  bring  our  reason  nearer  to  the  fun- 
damental principle  and  continuous  method 
of  divine  benevolence  with  regard  to  all 
natural  evil.  If  such  a  law  is  firmly  es- 
tablished in  our  science, —  to  return  again 
to  Job's  imagery, —  it  will  mark  another 
course  of  known  boundary  stones  in  our 
search  towards  the  end  of  thick  darkness 
and  of  the  shadow  of  death.  For  if,  as  we 
have  observed,  death  entered  into  life,  not 
at  the  beginning,  and  for  the  immediate 
disappointment  of  its  promise,  but  farther 
on,  and  later  down,  and  in  order  to  help 


52  THE  PATH  OP  LIFE  THROUGH  EVIL 

clear  the  way  for  richer  fulfilment  of  life's 
promise,  then  death,  in  its  primary  intent 
at  least,  is  justified;  in  its  original  and 
working  relation  to  life  and  the  ends  of 
life,  death,  which  seems  to  man  to  sum  up 
all  evil,  is  seen  itself  to  illustrate  a  prin- 
ciple of  natural  benevolence;  as  much 
so,  at  least,  as  any  other  natural  adapta- 
tion may  be  alleged  to  be  evidence  of  good 
purpose,  and  not  of  evil  design.  If  it  can 
be  scientifically  shown  that  death  falls 
under  the  general  method  of  natural  selec- 
tion, by  means  of  which  nature  has  seized 
upon  every  point  of  advantage  for  the 
benefit  of  life ;  then  the  working  of  death 
becomes  as  true  to  life,  and  as  beneficent, 
as  the  general  law  of  natural  selection, 
under  which  it  works,  may  be  affirmed  to 
have  been  true  throughout  to  life's  best 
ends,  and  to  operate  as  a  benevolent  prin- 
ciple of  perfection.  It  affords  our  moral 
philosophy  a  position  of  no  small  advan- 
tage to  be  assured  by  our  biological  science 
that  the  natural  evil  which  accompanies 
death,  is  evil  let  into  the  world  through  a 
door  which  was  opened  for  the  further  out- 


THE  PATH   OF   LIFE  THROUGH  EVIL     53 

going  and  larger  outlook  of  life.  Death, 
with  its  attendant  evils,  does  not  spring 
up  in  the  path  of  life  as  a  sudden  foe,  to 
turn  life  back,  to  frustrate  its  purpose  of 
good,  to  mangle  the  form,  to  wound  the 
spirit,  or  to  break  the  heart  of  nature ;  but 
it  enters  and  follows  in  the  path  of  life  as 
a  servant,  burying  the  useless  waste,  re- 
moving the  outworn  garment,  and  provid- 
ing ever-needed  nutriment,  as  life  strug- 
gles and  marches  on  to  its  height  and  joy. 
It  is  much  if  we  may  perceive  with  some 
scientific  precision  that  the  happiness  of 
animated  existence  is  due  to  the  func- 
tion of  death  as  well  as  to  the  energy 
of  life. 

When  in  the  fresh  summer  air  we  see, 
and  reflect  in  our  own  cheerful  mood,  the 
delight  in  existence  with  which  all  nature 
teems,  we  may  find  a  better  reason  for  our 
trust  in  the  divine  benevolence  than  that 
which  Paley  gave,  when  he  regarded  this 
provision  for  the  happiness  of  animated 
existence  as  the  outcome  of  a  series  of 
divine  acts  of  mechanical  drawing  and 
designing;  for  with  a  better  theological 


54     THE  PATH  OF  LIFE  THROUGH  EVIL 

belief  in  the  living  One,  in  whom  all  live 
and  move  and  have  their  being,  and  from 
a  science  which  traces  more  intelligently 
the  continuous  lines  of  his  working,  we 
may  be  assured  that  all  this  life  and  joy- 
ousness  of  the  summer's  day  is  the  sure 
and  increasing  issue  of  his  whole  proce- 
dure and  order  of  nature;  that  in  nature's 
larger  method  death  serves  life,  and  evil 
is  for  good;  that  to  the  vital  powers,  which 
include,  also,  and  use  the  forces  of  decay 
and  dissolution,  the  joy  and  melody  of 
forest  and  field  are  due ;  that  the  beauty 
of  the  flowers  and  every  song  of  bird  in 
the  sunny  air  is  a  tribute  of  nature  to  the 
timely  friendliness  of  death  as  well  as  to 
the  constancy  of  life,  through  which  — 
both  of  them  working  together  —  such 
color  and  fragrance,  such  balancing  of 
wing  and  circling  flight,  and  such  out- 
burst of  melodious  sound  have  in  nature's 
fulness  of  time  become  possible  in  the 
garden  of  the  Lord. 

Contemplating,  therefore,  the  facts  which 
have  thus  been  brought  within  the  range 


THE  PATH  OF   LIFE  THKOTJGH  EVIL     55 

of  our  observation,  and  which  indicate  the 
useful  function  of  death  under  the  prin- 
ciple of  natural  selection,  we  may  reason 
with  the  greater  theological  confidence 
that  the  existence  of  natural  evil  offers 
no  necessary  or  finally  inexplicable  re- 
proach against  the  method  of  the  Creator 
in  fitting  the  earth  for  the  abode  of  ani- 
mated existence,  and  in  leading  life  on  to 
ever-increasing  fruitfulness  and  joyous- 
ness.  Unless  we  could  presume  that  on 
the  whole  a  much  better  universe  might 
have  been  devised  for  the  attainment  of 
the  ends  of  life, —  and  we  have  no  knowl- 
edge or  reason  to  warrant  such  measure- 
less presumption,  —  we  can  assert  that 
whatever  is  an  essential  factor  of  the  ex- 
isting order,  and  is  seen  to  work  helpfully 
with  it,  and  not  obstructively  against  it, 
partakes  of  the  general  character  of  the 
whole  system,  to  which  it  belongs,  and  is 
good,  if  the  order  as  one  whole  is  benefi- 
cent. 

In  view  of  the  utilities  of  natural  death 
which  are  coming  to  be  known,  we  may 
the  more  confidently  conclude  that  the 


56     THE  PATH   OF   LIFE  THROUGH   EVIL 

Creator  will  never  need  to  apologize  to 
the  creation  for  having  permitted  the  door 
for  the  entrance  of  natural  evil  to  stand 
open  for  a  while  into  nature.  For  it  has 
been  opened  for  life's  sake. 


CHAPTER  III 

SCIENTIFIC   PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMOR- 
TALITY 


facts  which  we  have  thus  far  drawn 
1  from  recent  biological  science  do  not 
seem  at  first  glance  to  yield  us  any  firmer 
footing,  if  we  seek  to  find  our  way  further 
out  into  the  vast  mystery  of  our  possible 
human  life  after  death.  They  enable  us 
to  perceive  that  the  way  of  death  is  a  way 
of  advantage  for  the  life  of  the  race  as  a 
whole  ;  but  we  are  not  yet  helped  on  in 
the  argument  of  our  human  hearts  for  per- 
sonal immortality. 

Our  biological  sciences,  while  assuring 
us  of  the  general  utility  of  the  law  of 
death,  might  seem  to  be  no  better  com- 
forters to  hearts  overwhelmed  with  personal 
sorrow  than  were  Job's  three  naturalistic 
friends,  who  reasoned  with  him  as  hope- 
fully as  they  could,  but  without  healing 

67 


58      PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY 

balm  in  their  words,  from  man's  knowledge 
then  of  birds  and  plants,  and  the  many 
dark  processes  of  nature  up  to  the  bands 
of  Orion,  and  the  sweet  influences  of  the 
Pleiades.  Yet  it  is  something  to  gain 
once  more,  with  sure  footing  on  observed 
facts  of  nature,  an  Old  Testament  belief 
in  the  continuance  of  a  royal  line  of  life, 
and  the  immortality  of  the  chosen  race. 
The  Old  Testament  faith  in  national  and 
social  immortality  is  not  yet  the  gospel  of 
the  Life  which  was  manifested,  and 
which  is  risen  in  the  Christ  to  personal 
immortality ;  but  the  Old  Testament  faith 
in  the  continuance  and  the  perfection  of 
the  glory  of  the  royal  succession  of  life  in 
Israel,  was  the  preparation  for  the  gospel 
which  brought  life  and  immortality  to 
light.  Should  the  help,  then,  of  recent 
biological  science  desert  us  altogether  at 
this  point,  and  offer  no  further  suggestion 
in  aid  of  our  personal  quest  after  a  surer 
confidence  in  our  life  beyond  death,  we 
might  still  be  grateful  for  this  contribution 
of  evolutionary  science  to  the  fundamental 
Old  Testament  conception  of  a  selected 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      59 

line  of  life,  from  which  a  Christian  faith 
may  lift  higher  its  immortal  hope.  But 
the  suggestive  aid  of  modern  biology  does 
not  cease  altogether  at  this  point.  If  with 
the  facts  already  adduced  we  group  other 
results  of  evolutionary  studies,  and  follow 
them  all  out  as  far  as  we  reasonably  may, 
we  shall  discover,  planted  before  us, 
several  further  stepping-stones  across  the 
stream  towards  the  end  of  darkness  and  of 
the  shadow  of  death. 

Before  proceeding,  however,  to  pass  in 
review  the  facts  and  considerations  which 
science  may  contribute  in  furtherance  of 
the  argument  for  personal  immortality,  we 
need  rightly  to  conceive  of  the  nature  of 
the  aid  which  we  may  rationally  expect 
the  bodily  senses  to  bring  to  faith,  and 
which  the  science  of  sensible  phenomena 
may  leave  for  the  argument  of  divinity. 

This  aid  of  natural  science  to  moral  and 
spiritual  faith  may  be  of  a  threefold  nature. 
First,  it  may  remove  objections  to  the 
higher  possibilities  of  nature  and  life, 
which  our  religious  faiths  assume.  Ad- 
vancing knowledge  may  overcome  the 


60      PRESUMPTIONS  OF  IMMORTALITY 

obstacles  which  appear  at  first  sight  against 
spiritual  affirmations.  Later  science  may 
lay  level  difficulties  of  faith  which  ear- 
lier science  has  raised.  Increasing  vis- 
ion may  open  larger  possibilities  than 
are  seen  as  yet.  If  there  is  an  unseen 
universe,  connected  with  the  seen  by 
intangible  bands,  and  continuous  with 
it  through  invisible  transformations  of 
energy;  then  the  science  of  the  seen,  as 
it  exhausts  in  its  analysis  the  measurable 
energies  of  the  universe,  may  render  the 
more  irresistible  the  conclusion  that  there 
must  be  an  immeasurable  and  living  Power 
within  and  beyond  all  visible  phenomena. 
The  closing  act  of  all  science  will  be 
silently  to  leave  the  reason  face  to  face 
with  the  mystery  of  the  unseen.  Hence 
final  presumptions  of  natural  science  may 
become  the  first  assumptions  of  faith. 
Where  the  sight  of  the  eye  ends,  the  vision 
of  the  reason  begins.  A  rapid  survey  of 
the  results  to  which  evolutionary  science 
in  many  directions  is  coming,  would  in- 
dicate that  such  is  in  part  the  aid  which 
it  is  destined  to  render  to  a  new,  natural 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      61 

theology.  At  some  of  the  very  points 
where  at  first  it  raised  seemingly  impas- 
sable objections,  it  has  itself  in  time  sur- 
mounted its  own  difficulties,  and  given 
larger  scope  and  increased  energy  to  the 
argument  of  divinity  which  once  it 
seemed  to  bring  to  a  full  pause.  The 
fate,  for  instance,  of  the  argument  from 
design  in  the  hands  of  evolutionists  il- 
lustrates this  power  of  growing  science  to 
overcome  its  own  darker  scepticisms.  At 
first  evolution  interposed  a  sudden  stop  to 
the  reasoning  from  mechanical  analogies 
of  design,  which  theology  had  confidently 
pursued  through  whole  series  of  Bridge- 
water  Treatises.  Paley's  evidences  were 
dropped  from  the  course  of  a  liberal  edu- 
cation. But  the  same  evolutionary  science 
is  now  introducing  a  truer  and  larger  tele- 
ology of  its  own.  The  argument  from  the 
watch,  as  Mr.  Fiske  would  say,  has  been 
superseded  by  the  argument  from  the 
flower.  A  better  natural  theology  is  to 
be  gained  by  beholding  the  lilies  in  their 
growth  than  by  reasoning  from  the  con- 
struction of  a  timepiece.  This  is  only 


62      PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY 

saying  that  God's  creative  thought  in 
nature's  evolution  is  not  as  our  thought 
in  designing  an  artificial  mechanism. 
The  evidences  which  indicate  that  some 
way  of  evolution  has  been  nature's  uni- 
form method  serve  likewise  to  reveal 
closer  thought  and  deeper  wisdom  in 
nature.  Her  ends  are  immanent  in  her 
workings.  If  nature  in  its  separate  parts 
appears  to  be  mechanical,  as  one  ordered 
whole  it  is  rational.  Evolution,  indeed, 
proceeds  more  like  a  process  of  thought 
than  like  a  piece  of  handiwork. 

A  second  aid  to  faith,  which  may  rea- 
sonably be  expected  from  the  advance  of 
natural  science,  will  consist  in  an  increas- 
ing presumption,  of  positive  force,  in 
favor  of  moral  and  spiritual  interpreta- 
tions of  the  world.  Thus  the  new  tele- 
ology —  the  enlarged  argument  for  design 
—  to  which  we  have  just  referred,  not  only 
furnishes  an  instance  of  the  manner  in 
which  science  may  be  left  to  overcome 
its  own  spiritual  difficulties,  but  also  it 
offers  an  example  of  the  further  positive 
presumption  which  increasing  knowledge 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY      63 

may  render  faith.  As  nature  in  her  most 
intimate  processes  becomes  better  known, 
it  is  to  be  expected  that  the  reason  of  man, 
ever  at  work  on  its  moral  task,  will  find 
more  material  of  knowledge  to  be  reformed 
and  refashioned  with  improved  methods 
into  more  attractive  patterns  of  religious 
belief;  and  the  history  of  science  justifies 
this  expectation.  For  only  to  superficial 
observers,  or  to  intellects  shut  up  in  their 
own  unvital,  and  hence  unyielding,  habits 
of  thought,  has  there  ever  seemed  to  be  a 
warfare  between  science  and  religion.  No 
reconciliation  of  the  two  is  needed,  when 
both  are  honest  and  true.  The  only  real 
question  is,  —  and  it  is  a  question  always 
fascinating  to  candid  inquirers,  —  what 
may  nature  further  teach  science,  and  what 
more  may  faith  learn  from  the  science  to 
which  nature  is  teaching  new  truth  ? 

Besides  these  two  kinds  of  help,  which 
natural  science  may  lend  to  faith,  there  is 
still  a  third  possible  aid  by  no  means  to  be 
despised,  — the  service,  namely,  of  science 
to  the  spiritual  imagination.  The  diffi- 
culty of  faith  at  many  points  does  not  lie 


64      PRESUMPTIONS    OF   IMMORTALITY 

in  any  intrinsic  unreasonableness  of  it, 
but  in  its  inconceivableness.  The  trouble 
is  one  of  the  imagination.  The  difficulty 
sometimes  is  not  that  the  reason  is  not 
willing,  but  that  the  imagination  is  weak. 
Imagination  often  becomes  a  worse  sceptic 
in  us  than  the  reason.  Imagination  by 
its  weakness  sometimes  betrays  faiths 
which  no  reasoning  could  take  by  assault. 
One  cause  why  the  faith  of  little  children 
is  so  quick  and  undoubting  is  to  be  found 
in  childhood's  power  of  making  its  beliefs 
vivid  and  real  in  concrete  and  distinct 
imaginations.  Even  when  rationally  con- 
vinced of  a  truth,  we  may  need  to  become 
as  children  again  in  imagination,  in  order 
that  we  may  walk  in  the  faith  of  the  spirit. 
Thus  the  difficulty  of  conceiving  how 
thought  and  love  can  continue  when  no 
longer  manifested  through  a  bodily  pres- 
ence, and  the  utter  exhaustion  of  our 
imaginative  power  in  the  effort  to  render 
intelligible  the  conditions  of  the  life  be- 
yond death,  may  produce  an  oppression  of 
heart  and  numbness  of  spiritual  response 
to  the  Christian  hope,  which  is  not  an  un- 


PRESUMPTIONS  OF  IMMORTALITY   65 

familiar  mood  even  to  devout  believers. 
Hence  any  aid  which  science  may  offer  to 
the  spiritual  imagination  is  an  acceptable 
service.  If  a  spiritual  law  may  be  ren- 
dered more  conceivable  in  some  analogy 
of  natural  law,  or  if  a  scientific  concep- 
tion may  readily  lend  itself  to  some  fur- 
ther spiritual  use,  timely  aid  will  be  thus 
given  to  faith  where  its  strength  often 
fails,  and  where  help  is  most  grateful. 

Moreover,  though  science  may  fail  to 
bring  any  material  form  to  the  positive 
help  of  faith,  it  may  still  render  good  ser- 
vice by  showing  that  this  difficulty  of 
imagination  is  nothing  peculiar  to  the 
spiritual  sphere.  A  similar  failure  of  the 
imagination  follows  all  our  inquisitive 
sciences.  One  of  the  hardest  tasks  given 
to  the  modern  mind  is  to  realize  in  dis- 
tinct and  definite  concepts  the  fundamen- 
tal truths  of  physics  or  biology.  Yet  with 
sure  and  strenuous  persistence  science 
leads  us  through  worlds  of  unimaginable 
things.  The  nature  of  the  ether,  the  sub- 
tilties  of  molecular  combinations,  the  com- 
plexity of  processes  in  the  growth  of  an 


66   PRESUMPTIONS  OF  IMMORTALITY 

organism  from  the  inwrought  marvel  of  a 
vital  cell,  surpass  our  powers  of  concep- 
tion; yet  for  that  reason  neither  physics 
nor  biology  tarries  or  stops  in  its  course 
of  reasoning  from  observed  facts.  No 
scientific  conclusion,  if  required  by  strict 
reasoning,  is  lightly  to  be  cast  aside 
because  we  have  no  imagination  for  it. 
We  may  gain,  then,  from  the  pursuit  of 
scientific  inquiries  needed  aid  for  our 
spiritual  faiths  in  our  hours  of  imaginative 
weakness  and  unbelief. 

The  limits  also  of  the  possible  service 
of  science  to  the  spiritual  faiths  of  man 
should  be  observed.  We  shall  injure 
rather  than  help  our  faith,  if  we  seek  for 
more  knowledge  through  the  science  of 
the  senses  than  they  are  organized  to  re- 
ceive. Arguments  from  visible  analogies 
may  be  helpful,  until  overdriven.  More- 
over, we  may  submit  more  cheerfully  to 
the  limitations  of  our  spiritual  knowl- 
edge, when  we  see  clearly  within  what 
bounds  must  necessarily  be  kept  the  help 
which  can  possibly  be  brought,  either  for 
the  reason  or  the  imagination,  from  the 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      67 

restricted,   but  not  unfriendly,   realm  of 
natural  science. 

Thus  we  must  not  expect  any  science  to 
bring  within  reach  of  our  senses  a  demon- 
stration of  the  vast  outlying  spiritual 
reality  of  the  universe.  There  are  only 
two  conceivable  demonstrations  of  the  life 
beyond.  The  one  is  such  evidence  as 
the  disciples  received,  when  they  saw  the 
appearance  of  their  risen  Lord,  and  when 
by  his  manifestation  to  them  of  his  same 
thought  and  love  he  convinced  them  that 
it  was  He,  and  not  another,  —  the  Master, 
and  not  the  gardener,  who  said,  "Mary." 
His  spiritual  identity  was  the  essential 
part  of  his  self-revelation  to  the  disciples. 
The  manner  in  which  he  may  have  mani- 
fested that,  is  the  least  important  truth  of 
the  resurrection.  The  other,  the  only 
other  way  now  conceivable  of  the  demon- 
stration of  the  future  spiritual  life,  will  be 
our  personal  experience  of  it,  when  we 
shall  rediscover  ourselves  after  our  escape 
from  this  mortality. 

With  these  preliminary  remarks,  there- 


68      PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY 

fore,  concerning  the  possible  useful  ser- 
vice, and  the  necessary  limitations  of  the 
aid,  which  any  knowledge  of  visible  nature 
may  be  expected  to  lend  to  faith,  we  now 
resume  the  discussion  of  the  suggestions 
of  recent  evolutionary  science  concerning 
death  and  immortality. 

We  shall  seek  first  to  gain  the  broad 
vantage-ground  for  the  argument  for  im- 
mortality, to  which  evolutionary  science 
leads,  observing  the  enlargement  of  our 
whole  prospect  of  life,  which  it  opens 
before  us;  then,  secondly,  we  shall  point 
out  the  new  and  promising  view,  in  the 
direction  of  the  life  beyond,  which  may 
be  gained  from  our  present  inquiry  con- 
cerning the  natural  law  of  the  utility  of 
death. 

A  broader  and  more  luminous  concep- 
tion of  the  universe  as  existing  in  some 
all-pervasive  Intelligence,  —  this,  in  a 
single  sentence,  may  be  said  to  be  the 
rational  conception  of  the  creation  to 
which  we  are  led  by  all  our  scientific 
observation  of  it.  Evolutionary  science 
exalts  and  enlarges  the  spiritual  prospect 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      69 

of  man,  if  we  follow  it  far  enough,  and 
are  intellectually  strong  enough  not  to  be 
stalled  in  any  materialistic  morass  across 
which  its  first  course  may  run.  The  stur- 
dier thinkers  among  our  recent  evolution- 
ists are  not  hopelessly  swallowed  up  in 
the  bog  of  materialism;  Darwin  never 
affirmed  that  in  tracing  the  earthly  descent 
of  man  he  had  solved  the  whole  problem  of 
his  being  and  destiny ;  Tyndall  and  Hux- 
ley never  owned  the  materialism  of  those 
coarser  thinkers  who,  like  Vogt,  could 
compare  the  relation  of  thought  and  the 
brain  to  that  of  the  gall  and  the  liver; 
Mr.  Wallace  gets  clear  across  the  Serbo- 
nian  bog,  and  reaches  firm,  high  ground 
on  which  to  build  man's  moral  and  spiritual 
faiths,  when,  in  the  closing  chapter  of  his 
Darwinism,  he  holds  that  his  interpretation 
of  the  evidence  enables  us  to  "  accept  the 
spiritual  nature  of  man,  as  not  in  any  way 
inconsistent  with  the  theory  of  evolution, 
but  as  dependent  on  those  fundamental 
laws  and  causes  which  furnish  the  very 
materials  for  evolution  to  work  with."* 
*  Darwinism,  p.  476. 


70      PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY 

And  Romanes'  Life  and  Letters,  together 
with  his  Thoughts  on  Religion,  show 
how  the  way  may  be  opened  and  trav- 
ersed by  a  persistent  reasoner  from  an 
abandoned  mechanical  theism,  along  a  path 
of  strictly  scientific  thought,  towards  a 
high  and  clear  faith  in  the  One  omnipres- 
ent Mind,  in  which  alone  the  universe,  as 
one  ordered  and  reasonable  whole,  can 
find  its  ultimate  explanation.  Similar 
signs  of  return  towards  belief  in  some 
intelligent  direction  and  spiritual  causa- 
tion of  the  phenomena  of  life  may  be  dis- 
cerned in  the  reasonings  of  several  of  our 
biologists.  The  conception,  which  an 
apostle  of  old  had  gained,  does  not  lie  far 
from  our  modern  biology,  that  there  is  a 
living  One,  in  whom  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being.  It  is  distinctly 
recognized  as  the  ultimate  biological  in- 
ference by  some  investigators,  and  it  lies 
philosophically  close  to  the  conclusions 
of  others,  who  do  not  discern  so  distinctly 
the  theistic  tendency  of  their  own  work. 
Thus  Professor  Cope  regards  conscious- 
ness not  as  a  product,  but  as  an  essential 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      71 

condition  of  life.*  We  may  notice  in 
much  recent  scientific  literature  a  state  of 
mental  quiescence,  if  not  of  acquiescence, 
towards  religious  faiths.  It  may  be  de- 
scribed as  a  promising  pupa  condition  of 
modern  evolutionary  thought.  Although 
it  may  not  as  yet  respond  actively  to  spir- 
itual stimuli  and  suggestion,  it  lies  in  a 
transitional  condition,  which  is  interest- 
ing and  hopeful;  for  it  would  seem  to 
show  that  one  period  of  scientific  negation 
of  the  spiritual  life  has  come  to  its  natural 
close,  and  to  indicate  the  possibility  of  a 
further  unfolding  and  upspringing  of  sci- 
entific thought  into  the  light  of  a  higher 
life  in  spiritual  energy  and  joy.  A  sign 
of  this  mental  condition  and  its  promise 
may  be  found  in  a  passage  with  which 
Weismann  closed  his  essay  on  the  Dura- 
tion qf  Life,  after  he  had  reached  the 
scientific  conclusion  that  the  organic  world 
must  once  have  arisen,  and  further,  that 
it  will  at  some  time  come  to  an  end.  But 
before  he  can  drop  the  whole  matter  with 
this  conclusion,  he  adds  these  words: 
*  Primary  Factors  of  Organic  Evolution,  pp.  508  sq. 


72      PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY 

"Yet  who  can  maintain  that  he  has  dis- 
covered the  right  answer  to  this  important 
question?  And  even  though  the  discov- 
ery were  made,  can  any  one  believe  that 
by  its  means  the  problem  of  life  would  be 
solved  ?  If  it  were  established  that  spon- 
taneous generation  did  actually  occur,  a 
new  question  at  once  arises  as  to  the  con- 
ditions under  which  the  occurrence  became 
possible.  How  can  we  conceive  that  dead 
inorganic  matter  could  have  come  together 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  form  living  proto- 
plasm, that  wonderful  and  complex  sub- 
stance which  absorbs  foreign  material  and 
changes  it  into  its  own  substance,  in  other 
words,  grows  and  multiplies  ?  " 

"  And  so,  in  discussing  this  question  of 
life  and  death,  we  come  at  last  —  as  in  all 
provinces  of  human  research  —  upon  prob- 
lems which  appear  to  us  to  be,  at  least  for 
the  present,  insoluble.  In  fact,  it  is  the 
quest  after  perfected  truth,  not  its  posses- 
sion, that  falls  to  our  lot,  that  gladdens 
us,  fills  up  the  measure  of  our  life,  nay! 
hallows  it."  *  The  hallowing  of  life,  from 
*  Essays  upon  Heredity,  p.  36. 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY      73 

the  consciousness  that  our  science  does  not 
possess  the  secret  of  it,  and  in  the  felt 
presence  of  some  larger  mystery  around 
and  above  it  all,  comes  very  near  being 
that  fear  of  the  Lord  which  is  the  begin- 
ning of  wisdom. 

From  several  directions  scientific 
thought  approaches,  and  with  increasing 
reverence,  the  spiritual  mystery  of  the 
creation.  The  sublimation  of  matter  — 
the  supersensuousness  of  the  primal  con- 
ceptions of  physics  —  indicates  the  dis- 
tance which  scientific  thought  is  compelled 
to  go  from  the  visible  phenomena  of 
nature,  and  the  closeness  of  its  approach 
to  the  unseen  realities  of  the  created  uni- 
verse. Hence  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  more  speculative  physicists,  having 
passed  beyond  atomic  matter  in  their  con- 
ception of  the  ether,  from  which  the  atoms 
were  presumably  derived,  raise  the  further 
question,  whether  the  initiative  of  all  that 
we  see  and  may  know,  is  not  to  be  postu- 
lated as  "  a  something  existing  beyond  the 
ether,"  capable  of  acting  upon  it,  yet  not 
necessarily  in  any  such  mechanical  rela- 


74      PRESUMPTIONS   OP  IMMORTALITY 

tions  to  the  ether  as  those  which  we  may 
observe  in  the  laws  of  molecular  energies 
on  this  atomic  side,  so  to  speak,  of  the 
ether.* 

Still  more  the  study  of  the  phenomena 
of  life  presses  biological  thought  on 
through  all  molecular  changes  towards 
the  outlying  idea  of  the  Spirit.  The  un- 
veiling of  the  intricate  tracery  of  structure 
in  the  living  cell;  the  observation  of  mi- 
croscopic machinery  of  segmentation  in 
the  nucleus  of  the  egg ;  the  effort  to  follow 
still  further  the  involved,  but  definite, 
lines  of  hereditary  development,  have 
already  shown  that  the  phenomena  of  evo- 
lution are  far  too  complex  to  be  reduced 
to  any  single  formula,  —  such  as  the  laws 
announced  by  Darwin  and  Spencer  of  the 
struggle  for  existence,  adaptive  selection, 
and  survival  of  the  fittest.  No  one  exist- 
ing biological  school,  with  its  favorite 
principle  of  selection,  use  and  effort, 
growth-force  (bathmism),  or  any  mechani- 
cal pressures  and  planes  of  cleavage, 
commands  general  assent,  or  offers  an 
*  See  Biological  Lectures,  Wood's  Holl,  1895,  p.  81. 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY      75 

explanation  adequate  to  the  diversified 
facts  of  life.  Each  new  issue  of  our  sci- 
entific periodicals  will  contain  some  fresh 
suggestion  or  question  (and  too  often  some 
barbarously  compounded  new  word),  if 
not  some  further  light  upon  the  organic 
factors  of  evolution.  It  is  true  that  the 
once  recognized  school  of  vitalists  have 
been  of  late  generally  excluded  from  good 
biological  society.  Their  supposition  that 
there  is  a  special  vital  force  is  discredited, 
as  indeed  it  should  not  be  assumed,  in  a 
science  which  limits  itself  strictly  to  the 
observation  of  material  phenomena.  The 
science  of  life  must  be  a  knowledge  in 
which  distinctive  vital  phenomena  are 
seen  and  traced  in  their  relations  to  other 
known  processes  and  energies  of  nature; 
life  can  be  scientifically  studied  only  as 
a  series  of  phenomena  connected  with  cer- 
tain molecular  constitutions  and  chemical 
changes.  As  seen  from  the  physical  side, 
there  can  be  in  vital  phenomena  no  breach 
of  continuity.  Nevertheless,  the  fact  that 
life  may  be  known,  up  to  a  certain  extent, 
as  a  mechanical  process,  should  not  be  suf- 


76      PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY 

fered  to  obscure  the  further  fact  that  it  can 
thus  be  known  only  in  part,  —  and  that  not 
the  most  intimate  and  significant  part  of 
it.  The  reserved  mystery  of  life,  beyond 
any  known  physical  and  chemical  rela- 
tions, is  vastly  deeper  and  larger  than  the 
single  perplexing  question  which  concerns 
its  origin  on  the  earth.  Spontaneous  gen- 
eration —  an  exception  to  the  uniform  law 
of  biogenesis  —  has  never  been  proved; 
but  even  though  its  possibility  under 
earlier  and  favorable  conditions  of  matter 
should  be  admitted,  the  problem  of  life 
would  not  thereby  be  solved;  the  question 
as  to  its  nature  arid  the  directive  law  of 
its  development  would  then  only  be  raised. 
The  problem  of  heredity  is  a  remaining, 
and  a  more  inscrutable  part  of  the  prob- 
lem of  life. 

The  attempt  to  think  out  any  imagi- 
nable theory  of  heredity  (including  in 
it  the  directive  determination  of  vital 
energies  and  the  constancy  of  vital  repe- 
titions, as  well  as  the  tendency  to  varia- 
tion, and  the  processes  of  adaptive  devel- 
opment) constitutes  a  mental  task  which 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY      77 

baffles  imagination,  if  it  does  not  put 
the  most  strenuous  reasonings  to  final 
confusion.  When  Weismann  first  began 
his  work,  he  said  that  we  have  no  theory 
of  heredity;  and  since  he  has  published 
his  theory  of  the  germ-plasm,  with  its 
shifting  ingenuities,  the  statement  may  be 
made  with  still  greater  assurance, —  there 
is  now  no  one  theory  of  heredity  which 
commands  general  scientific  assent.  A 
vast  deal  has  been  learned;  the  facts  of 
heredity  are  more  distinctly  known;  but 
the  primal  and  directive  laws  escape  the 
microscope.  Of  the  hereditary  matter, 
which  Weismann  assumes,  he  remarks, 
"Its  structure  must  be  far  more  complex 
than  we  can  possibly  imagine. "  *  The  diffi- 
culty of  the  imagination  in  conceiving  its 
complexity,  and  in  tracing  the  lines  of  its 
mystic  workings,  does  not  grow  less,  but 
becomes  greater,  the  farther  we  follow  this 
eminent  biologist  in  his  endeavor  to  meet 
with  his  ever-plastic  theory  the  multi- 
plicity of  the  vital  facts  which  require  ever 
new  explanations.  The  problem  of  the 
*  Germ-Plasm,  p.  108. 


78   PRESUMPTIONS  OF  IMMORTALITY 

schoolmen  concerning  the  number  of 
angels  that  might  be  conceived  as  stand- 
ing on  the  point  of  a  needle,  may  be  said 
perhaps  to  equal,  it  hardly  can  surpass, 
the  question  which  is  thus  raised  by  our 
latest  biology  as  to  the  number  of  "bio- 
phors  "  (bearers  of  life)  which  may  find  a 
quiet  resting-place 'within  the  confines  of 
a  single  biological  unit.  We  are  not 
arguing  that  the  difficulty  of  rendering  a 
scientific  theory  imaginable  is  a  sufficient 
reason  for  its  rejection,  if  it  is  a  necessary 
scientific  deduction ;  we  are  simply  stating 
the  fact  that  the  most  persistent  effort  to 
comprehend  all  the  phenomena  of  life, 
which  modern  science  has  witnessed, 
drives  us  to  the  very  borders  of  the  things 
which  are  seen,  and  leaves  us  attempting  to 
handle  something  which  we  cannot  grasp, 
and  to  touch  that  which  is  intangible. 

The  marvel  of  development  from  the 
microscopic  nucleus  of  a  germ-cell  may 
be  put  before  the  imagination  by  a  sim- 
ple illustration.  Suppose  we  could  see  a 
small  heap  of  brick,  scraps  of  metal,  and 
pieces  of  mortar,  gradually  shaping  them- 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      79 

selves  into  the  walls  and  interior  structure 
of  a  building,  adding  needed  material  as 
the  work  advanced,  and  at  last  presenting 
in  its  completion  a  factory  furnished  with 
varied  and  most  finely  wrought  machinery. 
This  would  be  an  apt  image  of  the  transfor- 
mation which  our  science  declares  actually 
occurs  in  the  development  of  the  constitu- 
ent elements  of  life  from  the  egg  into  the 
structure,  organization,  and  play  of  func- 
tions, which  we  behold  in  the  finished 
animal  form.  Admitting  that  vital  devel- 
opment follows  lines  of  mechanical  con- 
struction; that  every  higher  part  rests 
upon  the  parts  beneath  it;  that  each 
wheel  of  its  complicated  mechanism  works 
in  perfect  adjustment  to  every  other  por- 
tion of  the  machinery,  —  nevertheless,  the 
building  up  of  the  building  is  the  wonder 
of  it  all  philosophically  to  be  accounted 
for. 

We  may  take  as  another  illustration  of 
the  marvel  of  the  mechanism  of  life  this 
passage  from  a  recent  text-book  on  Gen- 
eral Biology:  "We  may  perceive  how 
extraordinary  these  properties  are  by  sup- 


80      PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY 

posing  a  locomotive  engine  to  possess  like 
powers :  to  carry  on  a  process  of  self-repair 
in  order  to  compensate  for  wear ;  to  grow 
and  increase  in  size,  detaching  from  itself 
at  intervals  pieces  of  brass  or  iron  en- 
dowed with  the  power  of  growing  up  step 
by  step  into  other  locomotives  capable  of 
running  themselves,  and  of  reproducing 
new  locomotives  in  their  turn.  Precisely 
these  things  are  done  by  every  living 
thing,  and  nothing  like  them  takes  place 
in  the  lifeless  world."*  But  it  is  pre- 
cisely these  things  in  the  mechanism  of 
life  which  it  is  difficult  to  reduce  to  any 
physical  equivalence,  or  to  determine  in  a 
quantitative  analysis.  We  may  work  out 
these  vital  quantities  in  our  mechanical 
equations,  but  the  terms  at  the  end  of  the 
calculation,  as  at  the  beginning,  are  un- 
known factors  of  life.  This  reserved  sig- 
nificance of  life,  beyond  that  which  may 
be  expressed  in  its  mechanical  equiva- 
lents, is  admitted  by  many  biologists  who 
have  studied  closely  the  material  relations 
and  conditions  of  vital  phenomena.  No 
*  Sedgwick  and  Wilson,  General  Biology,  p.  4. 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY      81 

one  in  our  day  has  pursued  life,  as  a  form 
of  material  energy,  with  a  more  curious 
and  persistent  inquisition  than  has  Pro- 
fessor Weismann;  yet  while  stoutly 
maintaining  the  necessity  of  a  purely 
mechanical  conception  of  the  processes 
of  nature  as  alone  justifiable,  he  writes: 
"I  nevertheless  believe  that  there  is  no 
occasion  for  this  reason  to  renounce  the 
existence  of,  or  to  disown,  a  directive 
power;  only  we  must  not  imagine  this  to 
interfere  directly  in  the  mechanism  of  the 
universe,  but  to  be  rather  behind  the  latter 
as  the  final  cause  of  the  mechanism."* 
He  adds:  "But  just  as  we  must  assume 
behind  the  phenomenal  world  of  our  senses 
an  actual  world  of  the  true  nature  of  which 
we  receive  only  an  incomplete  knowledge, 
...  so  behind  the  co-operative  forces  of 
nature  which  *  aim  at  a  purpose, '  must  we 
admit  a  Cause,  which  is  no  less  incon- 
ceivable in  its  nature,  and  of  which  we 
can  only  say  one  thing  with  certainty, 
viz.,  that  it  must  be  teleological."  This 
knowledge  "leads  us  to  foresee  the  true 

*  Theory  of  Descent,  II.,  p.  708. 

o 


82      PRESUMPTIONS   OP   IMMORTALITY 

significance  of  the  mechanism  of  the 
universe."* 

An  American  biologist,  who  finds  it  diffi- 
cult to  conceive  of  life  apart  from  matter, 
nevertheless  is  compelled  to  include  the 
mechanical  conception  of  it  in  some  larger, 
prior  element  of  life:  "I  think  it  possible 
to  show  that  the  true  definition  of  life  is, 
energy  directed  by  sensibility,  or  by  a 
mechanism  which  has  originated  under 
the  direction  of  sensibility."!  Others, 
like  the  philosopher  Hartmann,  are  in- 
clined to  carry  the  mystery  of  life  still 
further  back,  and  to  suppose  that  the 
atoms  are  endowed,  besides  their  other 
known  properties,  "with  an  elementary 
sensibility."  But  even  though  all  matter 
should  be  thus  regarded  as  having  in  some 
sense  vital  properties,  its  development 
along  definite  lines,  and  with  an  imma- 
nent design,  is  still  the  unexplained  me- 
chanical problem  of  life. 

There  is  «a  scientific  arrogance  which 
seems  to  forget  how  great  is  the  remaining 

*  Theory  of  Descent,  II.,  p.  712. 
t  Cope,  Origin  of  the  Fittest,  p.  425. 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY      83 

mystery  of  life,  when  the  eager  hand  of 
an  experimenter  succeeds  in  lifting  some 
corner  of  the  veil  of  the  fine  physical  and 
chemical  process  under  which  its  secret  of 
living  intelligence  is  hidden.  In  contrast 
with  such  premature  exultation  may  be 
put  the  following  conclusion  of  one  of  the 
soberest  and  most  careful  investigators 
among  our  American  school  of  biologists, 
who  has  recently  published  a  valuable 
contribution  to  general  biology ;  —  his 
words  illustrate  the  wisdom  which  Dr. 
Chalmers  happily  described  as  the  modesty 
of  true  science.  "  When  all  these  admis- 
sions are  made,  and  when  the  conserving 
action  of  natural  selection  is  in  the  fullest 
degree  recognized,  we  cannot  close  our 
eyes  to  two  facts ;  first,  that  we  are  utterly 
ignorant  of  the  manner  in  which  the  idio- 
plasm of  the  germ-cell  can  so  respond  to 
the  play  of  physical  forces  upon  it  as  to 
call  forth  an  adaptive  variation ;  and  sec- 
ond, that  the  study  of  the  cell  has  on  the 
whole  seemed  to  widen  rather  than  to  nar- 
row the  enormous  gap  that  separates  even 
the  lowest  forms  of  life  from  the  inorganic 


84      PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY 

world."*  The  presumption  of  a  purely 
mechanical  conception  of  nature's  highest 
manifestation  of  feeling  and  thought  is 
well  hit  by  the  keen  philosophic  wit  of 
this  remark  of  the  late  Clerk  Maxwell: 
"  The  atoms  are  a  very  tough  lot,  and  can 
stand  a  great  deal  of  knocking  about,  and  it 
is  strange  to  find  a  number  of  them  combin- 
ing to  form  a  man  of  feeling."  f  Increas- 
ing and  intimate  acquaintance  with  vital 
phenomena  will  not  serve  to  diminish  the 
force  of  the  following  conclusion  of  this 
same  typically  scientific  mind:  "I  have 
looked  into  most  philosophical  systems, 
and  I  have  seen  that  none  will  work 
without  a  God.  "|  The  theory  of  some 
super-physical  direction  in  the  origin  and 
development  of  life  is  more  easily  conceiv- 
able than  an  exclusively  mechanical  theory, 
which  would  leave  intelligence  entirely 
out  of  all  the  determination  of  the  world. 
It  is  not  at  least  impossible  to  conceive 
of  vital  movements,  and  of  all  physical 

*  Wilson,  The  Cell  in  Development  and  Inheritance, 
p.  330. 

1  Life,  p.  391.  J /6td.,  p.  426. 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      85 

processes,  as  existing  in,  and  proceeding 
through,  an  omnipresent  Intelligence;  as 
we  know  that  ideas,  and  whole  trains  of 
thought,  pass  in  a  definite  arrangement 
and  logical  order  of  succession  through  the 
human  mind.  Such  a  conception  is  more 
thinkable,  because  more  analogous  to  our 
own  consciousness,  than  is  any  merely 
mechanical  conception  of  the  play  of  forces 
in  nature.  The  moment  biology  lifts  up 
its  eye  from  its  experiments  and  begins 
to  philosophize,  it  perceives  that  life  has 
a  larger  spiritual  background.  Vital  phe- 
nomena are  not  only  related  to  molecular 
properties  and  forces  in  the  foreground 
of  nature,  but  they  must  also  exist  in  con- 
tinuous correlation  with  the  "unknown 
factor  of  evolution,"  —  that  Potential  be- 
hind all  material  processes,  and  beyond 
all  finite  measurement,  which  evolution 
must  everywhere  presuppose. 

This  advance  of  thought  towards  the 
unseen  and  the  eternal,  which  proceeds 
from  the  deepening  of  our  knowledge  of 
nature,  is  itself  to  be  regarded  as  one  of 
the  significant  tendencies  of  the  evolution 


86      PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY 

of  modern  science.  If  one  could  start  a 
shaft  from  the  sunny  surface  of  the  earth, 
which  should  sink  with  constant  descent 
into  its  depths,  at  the  end  of  that  ever- 
descending  shaft  would  be  at  first  dark- 
ness, and  still  lower  down  we  hardly  know 
what ;  but  if  we  can  suppose  such  artesian 
shaft  to  be  sunk,  without  stoppage  in  any 
impenetrable  stratum  of  rock,  down  ever 
deeper,  until  it  should  reach  clear  through 
to  the  other  side  of  the  earth,  the  point  of 
the  shaft  would  come  out  once  more  into 
the  sunlight  on  the  skyward  side  of  the 
world.  At  both  ends  would  be  opened  the 
light  of  the  day  and  the  infinite  heaven. 
Something  like  this  already  seems  to  be  the 
case  with  man's  research  into  the  depths 
of  material  nature.  Our  thought  starts 
from  the  light  of  our  spiritual  conscious- 
ness, and  it  ends  with  outlook  towards 
the  spiritual  light.  Unbelief  is  only  a 
shaft  sunk  a  little  way  down  into  the 
darkness.  Our  unbelief  is  a  sign  that  our 
reason  has  not  yet  succeeded  in  working 
its  laborious  way  clear  through  things. 
If  it  can  keep  on,  in  any  investigation  of 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      87 

nature,  and  go  far  enough,  it  will  find  the 
sky  again,  —  the  same  spiritual  sky  which 
we  first  looked  up  to  in  our  childhood's 
happy  trust.  As  one  complete  and 
rounded  whole,  nature  lies  ensphered  in 
the  Eternal  Light.  Already,  indeed,  as 
we  have  just  indicated,  our  natural  sci- 
ences in  the  descent  of  their  inquiries  into 
the  ultimate  nature  of  matter  and  the  pro- 
found secrets  of  life,  have  gone  so  far  that 
they  seem  to  draw  near  to  intimations  and 
gleamings  of  some  spiritual  sphere  and 
reality  beyond.  Our  physics,  which  began 
by  turning  from  all  metaphysics,  is  itself 
creating  a  new  metaphysics.  Natural 
science  is  becoming  a  spiritualization  of 
the  material;  our  current  conceptions  of 
matter  are  sublimated  and  ethereal;  at 
points  only  a  thinnest  crust  seems  to  be 
left  between  the  natural  and  the  spiritual, 
between  mortal  darkness  and  the  eternal 
light. 

We  have  now  to  consider  more  defi- 
nitely how  the  argument  for  our  immortal- 
ity is  affected  by  these  general  tendencies 


88   PRESUMPTIONS  OF  IMMORTALITY 

of  thought  towards  the  spiritual,  which 
we  have  just  described.  It  follows  that  in 
the  present  state  of  human  knowledge  and 
speculation  we  have  at  hand  more  material 
fit  for  refashioning  into  the  philosophic 
argument  for  immortality,  than  Socrates 
could  have  possessed  in  the  knowledge  of 
his  time.  A  Plato  might  discourse  more 
divinely  now,  with  the  facts  of  science 
for  his  analogies,  than  he  could  reason 
when  he  had  only  the  mythologies  of  his 
age  for  illustrations  of  his  supernal  ideas. 
This  general  material  of  the  argument  for 
our  spiritual  faiths,  moreover,  has  been 
wrought  into  definite  and  attractive  forms 
by  several  recent  scientific  philosophers. 
It  will  be  necessary  for  us  to  review  these 
reasonings,  in  order  that  we  may  pass  on 
to  the  further  extension  of  the  argument 
for  immortal  life  to  which  our  present  in- 
quiry points. 

One  of  the  later  scientific  reinforce- 
ments of  the  philosophic  argument  for 
immortality  has  been  drawn  from  the 
principle  of  continuity.  This  principle 
has  been  used  by  the  authors  of  the  Unseen 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      89 

Universe  as  the  basis  for  the  construction 
of  an  elaborate  argument  for  the  continua- 
tion of  our  life  after  death;  and  still  fur- 
ther, with  the  help  of  other  admitted 
physical  truths,  they  have  sought  to  ren- 
der conceivable  the  possibility  of  another 
sphere  of  existence  connected  with  this, 
yet  superior  to  it,  in  which  we  have  now 
our  spiritual  birthright,  and  into  which 
after  death  our  life  shall  without  personal 
loss  be  transformed.  According  to  this 
view,  death  would  become  a  transference 
of  individual  existence  from  this  visible 
universe  to  some  other  order  of  things  inti- 
mately connected  with  it.  *  The  conclusion 
of  their  reasonings  with  regard  to  life  in 
its  connection  with  matter,  they  have 
expressed  in  this  sentence:  "In  fine,  we 
maintain  that  what  we  are  driven  to  is 
not  an  under-life  resident  in  the  atom,  but 
rather,  to  adopt  the  words  of  a  recent 
writer,  a  Divine  over-life  in  which  we 
live  and  move  and  have  our  being,  "f 
Their  hypothesis  that  life,  as  well  as  mat- 

*  Unseen  Universe,  p.  97,  ed.  1886. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  246. 


90      PRESUMPTIONS   OP  IMMORTALITY 

ter,  has  been  developed  from  the  Unseen, 
they  hold  to  be  the  only  possible  method 
of  avoiding  a  breach  of  the  principle  of 
continuity ;  and  to  break  with  that  would 
be  to  break  with  modern  science.  Death, 
they  reason,  in  consistency  with  their  sci- 
entific principles,  will  furnish  no  barrier 
to  the  intellectual  development  of  the  in- 
dividual ;  and  they  further  conceive  it  to 
be  possible  that  this  whole  material  order, 
coming  in  time  to  an  end  of  its  available 
energy,  may  be  ultimately  resolved  into 
the  higher  order,  with  which  it  is  always 
related,  and  that  in  the  final  universe, 
which  has  never  been  unreal,  though  now 
unseen,  this  visible  universe  "may  bury 
its  dead  out  of  sight."  * 

We  will  not  pursue  further,  nor  pause 
to  criticise,  any  portions  of  this  interest- 
ing scientific  speculation  concerning  the 
possible  conditions  and  laws  of  our  con- 
tinuous spiritual  being ;  it  is  enough  for 
our  present  purpose  to  show  by  refer- 
ences to  such  opinions  that  science  affords 
to  some  of  her  own  votaries  new  points 
*  Unseen  Universe,  p.  157,  ed.  1886. 


PBESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      91 

of  leverage  for  the  argument  of  their 
faith. 

The  authors  of  the  Unseen  Universe  are 
physicists,  and  draw  the  material  of  their 
reasonings  mainly  from  their  acquaintance 
with  the  facts  and  hypotheses  of  modern 
physics.  Their  argument  might  in  some 
parts  of  it  be  further  illustrated  and  en- 
forced from  recent  biological  materials. 
Thus  Weismann's  speculation  concerning 
the  natural  immortality  of  the  germ- 
plasm;  his  assertion  of  the  continuity  of 
life ;  and  his  affirmation  that  "  every  indi- 
vidual alive  to-day  —  even  the  very  high- 
est —  is  to  be  derived  in  an  unbroken  line 
from  the  first  and  lowest  forms,"*  might 
lend  additional  force  to  the  skilful  reason- 
ings of  these  authors  from  the  physical 
principles  of  the  "conservation  of  mass," 
and  of  energy,  and  from  the  continuity  of 
nature.  It  is  a  living  as  well  as  a  physi- 
cal continuity. 

Another  and  interesting  course  of  rea- 
soning has  been  pursued  by  Mr.  John 
Fiske  in  his  book  on  the  Destiny  of  Man. 
*  Essays  upon  Heredity,  L,  p.  161. 


92      PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY 

He  accepts  the  belief  in  the  immortality  of 
the  soul  as  "a  supreme  act  of  faith  in  the 
reasonableness  of  God's  work."*  He  was 
led  to  this  supreme  act  of  faith  through 
the  revelation,  which  finally  came  to  him 
in  his  studies  of  evolution,  that  there  are 
distinct  intimations  of  a  dramatic  ten- 
dency in  evolution,  which  culminates  in 
man,  and  in  the  development  of  his 
exalted  spiritual  qualities.  Darwinism, 
which  seemed  at  first  to  degrade  man, 
has  in  reality  replaced  him  upon  the 
throne  of  creation.  This  new  exaltation 
of  man  as  the  goal  toward  which  the 
whole  dramatic  movement  of  evolution 
has  tended,  this  re-enthronement  by  evo- 
lutionary science  of  man  as  the  head  of 
creation,  may  best  be  described  in  Mr. 
Fiske's  own  words :  "  That  which  the  pre- 
Copernican  astronomy  naively  thought  to 
do  by  placing  the  home  of  man  in  the 
centre  of  the  physical  universe,  the  Dar- 
winian biology  profoundly  accomplishes 
by  exhibiting  man  as  the  terminal  fact 
in  that  stupendous  process  of  evolution 
*  Destiny  of  Man,  p.  116. 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      93 

whereby  things  have  come  to  be  what  they 
are.  In  the  deepest  sense  it  is  as  true 
as  it  ever  was  held  to  be,  that  the  world 
was  made  for  man,  and  that  the  bringing 
forth  in  him  of  those  qualities  which  we 
call  highest  and  holiest  is  the  final  cause 
of  creation."  Of  this  new  conception  of 
man  he  writes :  "  When,  after  long  hover- 
ing in  the  background  of  consciousness, 
it  suddenly  flashed  upon  me  two  years 
ago,  it  came  with  such  vividness  as  to 
seem  like  a  revelation."*  He  reasons, 
further,  that  "he  who  regards  Man  as  the 
consummate  fruition  of  creative  energy, 
and  the  chief  object  of  Divine  care,  is 
almost  irresistibly  driven  to  the  belief 
that  the  soul's  career  is  not  completed 
with  the  present  life  upon  the  earth,  "f 
He  sees  no  more  occasion  for  throwing 
away  our  belief  in  the  permanence  of  the 
spiritual  element  in  man,  than  there  is 
reason  to  throw  away  our  belief  in  the 
constancy  of  nature.  "Now  the  more 
thoroughly  we  comprehend  that  process 

*  Idea  of  God,  p.  xxi. 
t  Destiny  of  Man,  p.  111. 


94      PKESUMPTIONS  OF  IMMORTALITY 

of  evolution  by  which  things  have  come 
to  be  what  they  are,  the  more  we  are 
likely  to  feel  that  to  deny  the  everlast- 
ing persistence  of  the  spiritual  element 
in  Man  is  to  rob  the  whole  process  of  its 
meaning."* 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  argument  for  our 
immortality  which  forces  itself  upon 
the  minds  of  many  thoughtful  observers, 
who  take  into  their  view  the  regular 
course  and  manifest  tendency  of  evolu- 
tion considered  as  a  whole.  Investi- 
gators who  are  buried  in  the  tasks  of 
special  observations  may  not  discern  these 
larger  implications  of  their  science,  as  one 
at  the  bottom  of  a  tunnel  can  have  only 
the  narrowest  horizon,  and  no  outlook; 
but  Mr.  Fiske's  conclusions  in  his  Destiny 
of  Man  may  be  regarded  as  fairly  repre- 
sentative of  the  faith  which  a  scientific 
mind  may  reach,  when  it  rises  above  the 
details  of  its  measurements  and  out  of  its 
specializations,  and  surveys  nature  as  one 
significant  and  rational  process.  Evolu- 
tion, when  regarded  as  one  persistent 
*  Destiny  of  Man,  p.  115. 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY      95 

method,  and  when  followed  through  the 
vast  orbit  of  its  movement,  is  seen  to  pro- 
ceed with  sure  intent,  and  with  face 
which,  though  often  veiled  from  us,  is 
turned  always  one  way  and  towards  the 
same  goal,  from  the  dark  mystery  of  all 
origins  up  to  the  glory  that  excelleth.  So 
that  the  argument  in  general  for  the  per- 
manent exaltation  of  man's  spiritual  being 
is  not  only,  as  Mr.  Fiske  puts  it,  a  "su- 
preme act  of  faith  in  the  reasonableness  of 
God's  work  " ;  it  is  confidence  especially 
in  the  reasonableness  of  the  creation  in 
relation  to  God's  work  in  man,  and  for 
man,  in  his  organization,  capacities,  and 
aptitudes  for  perfected  life. 

The  same  processes  in  nature  which 
impressed  Mr.  Fiske  as  indications  of  a 
dramatic  tendency  which  finds  its  culmi- 
nating scene  in  man's  destiny,  impressed 
an  eminent  German  botanist,  Nageli,  so 
profoundly  as  to  lead  him  to  assume  "a 
principle  of  perfection  "  in  organic  evolu- 
tion.* Nageli,  indeed,  disclaims  the  in- 
troduction under  this  phrase  of  any  mystic 
*  Theorie  der  Abstammungslehre,  p.  12. 


96      PRESUMPTIONS   OP  IMMORTALITY 

principle,  and  regards  it  as  a  formulation 
of  purely  mechanical  processes.  He  de- 
fines it  likewise  as  a  principle  of  progres- 
sion. He  regards  perfection  in  nature  as 
twofold,  —  a  perfection  of  structure  or 
form,  and  also  a  perfection  of  adaptation 
of  any  organism  to  its  environment.  But 
however  we  may  determine  the  mechanical 
method  in  which  the  principle  of  perfec- 
tion in  nature  works,  the  recognition  of  it 
carries  us  beyond  mechanics  for  its  rational 
explanation.  Whether  we  regard  the  ten- 
dency towards  perfection  as  a  consequence 
of  forces  external  to  the  organism,  work- 
ing under  the  law  of  natural  selection ;  or 
whether  we  incline  to  the  views  of  Nageli, 
and  other  evolutionists,  who  would  find 
internal  causes  of  growth  and  variation 
within  the  organism, —  the  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  in  some  way  nature  works 
towards  perfection  involves  the  discern- 
ment of  an  immanent  aim  and  a  definite 
end  in  evolution. 

The  significant  facts,  written  large 
before  the  common  observation  of  men, 
and  written  small,  likewise,  in  the  micro- 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY      97 

scopic  structure  and  definite,  though 
unknown,  determinants  of  the  simplest 
organisms,  are  that  life  is  wondrously 
persistent,  and  also  that  it  persists 
towards  perfection.  Life  will  not  con- 
sent to  be  subject  unto  death;  it  has 
manifestly  come  in  some  form  to  stay; 
and,  being  thus  deathless  in  its  energy, 
it  will  not  stop  nor  tarry  until  it  has  pro- 
duced its  perfect  work.  That  work  will 
be  perfect  both  in  its  form  and  in  its 
adaptation  to  environment.  But,  as  Mr. 
Drummond  has  insisted  in  his  chapter  on 
"Eternal  Life,"  perfect  correspondence  to 
environment  is  a  scientific  conception  of  a 
possible  eternal  life  which  finds  fulfil- 
ment in  the  Christian  conception  of  the 
perfection  of  the  soul  in  knowing  God.* 
That  which  we  now  see  manifested  is  only 
the  tendency  toward  perfection,  —  not  as 
though  in  man's  present  existence  it  had 
"  already  obtained,"  or  were  "  already  made 
perfect."  But  we  see  nature  "forgetting 
the  things  which  are  behind,  and  stretch- 
ing forward  to  the  things  which  are  before." 
*  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World,  p.  221. 


98      PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY 

The  last  perfection  of  structure  may  have 
been  already  reached  in  the  spiritual  nature 
which  is  embodied  in  man,  —  the  living 
soul.  But  the  perfection  of  adaptation  to 
environment  towards  which,  also,  how- 
ever mechanically,  all  evolution  tends,  is 
not  yet  reached  in  the  present  relation  of 
the  soul  and  the  body;  the  new  adapta- 
tion, the  perfection  of  adaptation,  may  be 
realized,  and  realized  under  a  larger  law 
of  natural  selection  than  we  may  yet  com- 
prehend, in  the  body  of  the  resurrection. 
We  behold  life  struggling  and  marching 
on  through  advancing  forms  which  become 
more  highly  organized  in  their  structure, 
and  which  consequently  are  better  fitted  to 
survive  in  a  larger  and  more  varied  range 
of  adaptations ;  we  see  life  calling  in  and 
using  both  the  gracious  aid  of  sex,  and 
the  silent  help  of  death,  to  enable  it  to 
gain  new  and  more  richly  diversified  form 
and  color,  until  in  man's  nature  it  seems 
to  reach  a  consciousness  of  its  own  worth 
beyond  which  it  cannot  go,  and  in  which 
it  aspires  to  continue,  rejoicing  in  itself, 
forever. 


PRESUMPTIONS    OF   IMMORTALITY      99 

In  the  development  of  plants  and  ani- 
mals, a  variation  from  the  parental  form 
will  reach  in  time  a  "selective  value," 
as  it  is  called,  when  it  becomes  con- 
siderable enough  to  be  useful  to  the 
plant  or  animal  in  its  effort  to  nourish  or 
to  protect  itself.  The  variety  is  regarded 
as  having  obtained  a  "survival-value" 
also,  when  the  advantage,  which  it  has 
acquired,  fits  it  to  survive  better  than 
others  around  it.  Man  seems  to  have 
gained  nature's  final  survival- value.  For 
the  only  fitting  end  of  the  entire  dramatic 
tendency  of  life,  the  crowning  result  of  the 
whole  struggle  of  existence,  —  the  gain 
of  which  may  justify  all  loss  below  it, 
—  is  the  rise  and  perfection  of  a  being 
whose  life  has  acquired  selective  value  for 
the  powers  of  the  world  to  come  to  seize 
upon,  —  a  being  who  shall  consequently 
attain  to  a  survival- value  beyond  the  reach 
of  natural  death.  With  a  true  interpre- 
tative insight  into  this  continuous  and 
irresistible  principle  of  perfection  in 
nature,  we  may  regard  it  in  its  inner  and 
real  meaning  as  a  tendency  of  nature 


100      PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY 

towards  immortality.  The  living  soul  of 
man  seems  to  itself,  and  is  declared  by 
the  perfect  Man,  in  whom  it  came  to  its 
perfect  realization,  already  to  have  "  passed 
out  of  death  into  life,"  and  to  have  the 
eternal  life.  Or  to  express  again  its  inner 
consciousness  of  worth  and  power  after 
the  analogy  of  our  biological  science,  the 
living  soul  has  at  length  attained  con- 
scious "  survival- value  "  for  immortality. 

The  force  of  this  argument  for  immor- 
tality from  the  tendency  towards  perfection 
in  nature,  is  heightened  by  two  further  con- 
siderations, which  are  justified  by  the  facts 
of  life.  The  first  relates  to  the  value  of 
sacrifice  as  a  means,  but  not  as  an  end,  of 
life.  Alike  in  our  religious  conception 
of  it,  and  in  the  use  of  it  in  nature,  sacri- 
fice is  to  be  regarded  as  a  means  of  life, 
which  would  forfeit  its  moral  value,  and 
lose  all  its  beauty,  if  it  should  be  chosen 
as  an  end  of  life.  In  evolution  sacrifice 
appears  to  be  a  method  followed  by  nature 
for  the  advantage  of  a  species,  or  for  the 
introduction  of  a  higher  order  of  organic 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      101 

development.  Each  evolutionary  order 
is  sacrificed,  not  as  though  nature  took 
pleasure  in  sacrifices,  or  in  the  blood  of 
bulls  and  goats,  but  for  the  benefit  of  the 
order  above  it,  as  though  at  any  cost 
nature  must  press  on  to  the  goal,  and  win 
the  crown  of  life.  Thus  the  inorganic  is 
broken  up  in  order  that  from  its  dust  the 
plant  may  spring  and  blossom ;  the  plant 
in  turn  gives  up  its  fruit  that  the  animal 
may  be  nourished;  and  the  law  of  prey 
among  animals  is  not  to  be  regarded  as 
a  reckless  thirst  in  nature  for  blood, 
but  it  indicates  rather  the  existence  of  a 
scale  of  adaptations  for  offence  and  de- 
fence, and  of  a  system  of  sacrifice  and 
reprisal,  by  means  of  which  on  the  whole 
vital  organization  is  specialized,  refined, 
rendered  more  agile  and  responsive,  and 
eventually  made  meet  for  the  kingdom  of 
mind,  to  which  man  comes  in  the  power  of 
the  spirit. 

The  other  consideration  relates  to  the 
immanence  in  nature  of  this  sacrificial 
tendency  for  the  sake  of  perfection.  This 
is  not  a  discipline  imposed  upon  nature 


102      PRESUMPTIONS   OF  IMMORTALITY 

from  without;  it  is  not  a  course  of  sacri- 
fice for  the  sake  of  higher  survivals  to 
which  nature  is  with  difficulty  held  by 
external  compulsion;  it  is  an  instinct  of 
nature's  own  heart.  It  might  be  called  a 
constitutional  law  of  nature's  order;  and 
as  such  it  has  the  highest  significance  in 
any  rational  interpretation  of  the  world. 
For  it  is  thus  seen  to  be,  not  an  accidental 
or  temporary  contrivance,  but  a  permanent 
and  persistent  tendency  of  life  towards 
perfection.  It  is  the  working  out  of  the 
indwelling  and  dominant  principle  of  life 
in  its  outward  evolution.  A  reaching 
towards  perfection  is  the  unconscious  and 
instinctive  attitude  of  nature.  This  is  no 
"  device  " ;  it  is  an  indwelling  end  of  all 
evolution. 

We  simply  project  this  immanent  law 
and  process  of  life  into  the  future,  and 
believe  in  its  manifest  destiny,  when  we 
hold  that  the  sacrifice  of  life,  which  we 
now  everywhere  see  manifested,  shall 
eventually  attain  its  end  in  a  perfec- 
tion and  joy  of  life  which  is  not  yet  made 
manifest.  Its  apparently  predetermined 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      103 

and  inevitable  result  would  be  some  order 
of  life  which,  in  the  use  of  all  below  it, 
has  itself  passed  beyond  the  need  of  sacri- 
fice for  the  sake  of  any  conceivably  higher 
life  above  it.  From  life's  topmost  bough 
the  spirit  takes  wing,  and  soars  and  sings 
into  "the  heavenlies."  Thus  we  are 
brought  back  again  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  tendency  of  nature  towards  perfection 
is  an  upreaching  towards  an  order,  and 
range,  and  freedom  of  life,  which  shall  not 
merely  have  sacrificial  value  for  the  sake 
of  something  beyond  it,  but  also  an  eter- 
nal survival- value  because  it  is  fitted  to 
live  for  the  glory  of  God  in  the  highest 
forever. 

We  may  use  the  glowing  words  of  Mr. 
Fiske  to  describe  the  favorable  point  of 
view  which  we  have  now  reached  in  the 
argument  for  immortality :  — 

"According  to  Mr.  Spencer,  the  divine 
energy  which  is  manifested  throughout 
the  knowable  universe  is  the  same  energy 
that  wells  up  in  us  as  consciousness. 
Speaking  for  myself,  I  can  see  no  insuper- 
able difficulty  in  the  notion  that  at  some 


104      PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY 

period  in  the  evolution  of  Humanity  this 
divine  spark  may  have  acquired  sufficient 
concentration  and  steadiness  to  survive 
the  wreck  of  material  forms  and  endure 
forever.  Such  a  crowning  wonder  seems 
to  me  no  more  than  the  fit  climax  to  a 
creative  work  that  has  been  ineffably 
beautiful  and  marvellous  in  all  its  myriad 
stages."* 

In  these  reasonings  we  are  only  apply- 
ing to  the  higher  nature  of  man  in  its 
structural  aptitudes  the  principle  of  the 
correspondence  between  faculty  and  en- 
vironment, which  obtains  as  a  constant 
law  and  a  sure  prophecy  of  coming  life 
throughout  the  whole  sphere  and  opera- 
tion of  nature  beneath  man.  The  lung, 
developing  from  the  gills  of  the  fish,  finds 
the  clear  air  waiting  above  the  water's 
surface  to  be  breathed.  The  wing  of  the 
bird  finds  a  buoyant  element  in  which  it 
may  be  safely  spread.  The  eye,  growing 
from  some  primitive  spot  of  more  sensitive 
pigment,  when  at  last  nature  has  finished 
it,  finds  the  whole  broad  day  waiting  for 
*  Destiny  of  Man,  p.  117. 


PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY      105 

its  opening.  The  existence  in  any  creat- 
ure of  a  structural  aptitude  and  a  growing 
power  is  a  scientific  presumption  of  the 
existence  also  of  some  corresponding  en- 
vironment, for  which  it  has  been  selected 
and  adapted.  Lungs,  or  wings,  or  roots 
of  the  plant,  would  not  be  capacity  for 
vital  breath,  or  graceful  flight,  or  swift 
motion,  or  fair  blossoming,  if  nature  were 
not  true  to  her  own  prophecies,  and  did 
not  justify  her  anticipations  by  making  all 
things  ready,  and  supplying  in  due  time 
to  each  and  every  power  of  life  its  fitting 
and  festal  element.  Without  the  com- 
pleting element,  these  organic  faculties 
would  be  false  prophesyings,  —  only  un- 
intelligible anticipations  of  something 
unrealized  as  yet.  Now  if  this  principle 
hold  true  of  all  powers  and  functions  of 
nature  up  to  the  life  of  man,  why  should 
it  suddenly  become  false  with  man's  di- 
vine faculty  of  thought,  will,  and  love? 
Why  should  nature's  uniform  truth  break 
its  promise  only  to  our  human  hearts? 
Why  should  this  universal  principle  of 
adaptation  of  power  to  environment,  by 


106      PRESUMPTIONS   OF   IMMORTALITY 

which  we  know  that  if  the  one  be  given 
the  other  also  shall  in  time  be  made  mani- 
fest, unexpectedly  break  short  off  with 
man's  higher  life  and  hope?  We  read 
alike  in  Scripture  and  in  nature  that  there 
is  a  faithful  Creator.  Nature's  gospel  of 
life,  —  her  mystery  of  grace,  —  long  hid- 
den in  the  lowest  organisms,  but  now 
revealed,  to  such  as  have  eyes  to  see,  in 
her  highest  manifestations  of  the  Life, —  is 
one  gospel  of  hope,  and  it  is  true  through- 
out. The  existence  of  spiritual  power 
within  us  is  likewise  presumption  that 
some  fitting  environment  waits  for  the 
spirit  when  it  shall  be  perfected  and  set 
free.  Or,  as  a  prophet  of  old  put  it:  God 
"worketh  for  him  that  waiteth  for  him."* 

*  Is.  Ixiv.  4. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  FINAL   DISCHARGE   OF   DEATH 


general  review  in  the  previous 
1  chapter  of  the  argument  for  immor- 
tality, as  it  may  be  advanced  in  the  light 
of  modern  science,  leaves  before  us  the 
distinct  possibility  that  in  the  living  soul 
of  man  evolution  may  have  reached  a  per- 
fection of  life  which  is  so  far  independent 
of  its  present  physical  embodiment  that  it 
can  persist,  and  enter  into  other,  though 
to  us  as  yet  unknown,  relations  with  the 
universe.  We  have  further  seen  the  rea- 
sonable probability  that  this  possible  con- 
tinuance of  spiritual  life  under  new 
conditions  to  which  it  is  adapted,  shall 
be  realized;  as  otherwise  the  whole  pro- 
cess of  evolution  would  fail  of  its  evi- 
dent tendency  towards  perfection,  and 
the  entire  history  of  life  would  be  robbed 
of  its  rational  interpretation.  With  the 
107 


108       FINAL   DISCHARGE   OF   DEATH 

advent  of  man,  evolution  closed  its  old 
testament,  in  which  the  selection  and 
preservation  of  the  chosen  species  had 
been  the  law  of  the  kingdom,  rather  than 
the  separation  and  perfection  of  the  indi- 
vidual. It  began  with  man  its  new  testa- 
ment, in  which  the  life — the  true,  the 
eternal  kind  of  life  —  comes  to  its  hour  of 
individual  calling  and  consciousness,  and 
has  its  work  of  the  Son,  and  not  the  ser- 
vant, given  it  to  do  in  the  Father's  house. 
Like  the  world's  second  Bible,  — the 
spoken  word  of  God, — so  also  the  first 
pictorial  Scripture  of  nature  —  the  reve- 
lation of  life  which,  though  not  audibly 
spoken,  was  depicted  and  acted  in  the  suc- 
cessive scenes  and  throughout  the  whole 
dramatic  presentation  of  life  on  the  earth 
—  is  to  be  read  and  interpreted  as  a  book 
of  prophecy  which  shall  end  in  an  apoca- 
lypse. Unless  read  as  prophecy,  the  whole 
book  of  life  becomes  unintelligible.  Nat- 
ure's prophecy  of  life  ends  with  man  and 
his  future  as  its  apocalypse. 

In    the    new   course    which    evolution 
began  with  the  advent  of  man,   we   see 


FINAL   DISCHARGE   OF   DEATH       109 

that  almost  immediately  the  field  of  ac- 
tion was  changed,  and  in  time  older 
methods  also  of  natural  life  became  sub- 
ordinated to  new  modes  of  spiritual  pro- 
cedure. The  change  of  the  field  for  the 
struggle  of  life  was  from  the  physical  to 
the  psychical,  from  the  body,  which  is 
finished,  to  the  soul,  which  has  begun  to 
live.  Atomic  matter  seems  to  have  been 
carried  to  the  last  possible  degree  of 
molecular  serviceableness  in  the  intricate 
subtleties  of  the  human  brain;  and  our 
evolutionists  assure  us  that  there  is  little 
reason  to  expect  the  appearance  on  this 
earth  of  any  being  of  superior  physical 
organization  to  man.  Evolution,  in  one 
word,  seems  to  be  through  with  the  body, 
when  it  has  fairly  begun  with  the  soul. 
It  has  reached  in  our  selfhood,  conscious 
of  its  continuous  identity,  a  new  realm  or 
order  of  existence;  it  has  crossed  the 
threshold,  and  stands  as  a  child  of  the 
Eternal  in  the  Father's  presence.  The 
same  self-conscious  being  who  preserves 
his  moral  identity  through  the  incessant 
changes  of  the  molecular  processes  with 


110       FINAL   DISCHARGE  OF   DEATH 

which  his  life  is  connected  in  this  body, 
has  already  reached  a  point  of  spiritual 
independence,  although  not  yet  of  com- 
plete detachment  from  atomic  matter ;  that 
detachment,  with  possibility  of  new  and 
better  connection  with  the  elemental 
forces,  may  be  the  last  possible  step  in 
the  evolution  of  the  soul  —  the  last  trans- 
formation which  is  the  beginning  of  the 
end  and  the  possession  of  the  final  glory 
of  life. 

This  conception  of  man's  increasing 
spiritual  independence  and  perfectibil- 
ity, which  science  does  not  forbid,  but 
which,  on  the  contrary,  fulfils  its  constant 
and  ascending  course  of  adaptations  and 
selection,  is  the  doctrine  of  the  future 
survival  of  the  soul  which  is  declared  in 
the  Biblical  revelation  of  the  two  orders, 
—  the  natural  and  the  spiritual,  —  and  the 
completion  of  the  former  in  the  latter. 
We  read,  "  If  there  is  a  natural  body,  there 
is  also  a  spiritual  body."  In  the  light  of 
our  science  we  may  affirm  that  as  the  one 
order  is  part  and  product  of  evolution,  so 
also  shall  the  other  be  its  end;  nature's 


FINAL   DISCHARGE  OF   DEATH       111 

whole  is  large  enough  to  include  both. 
We  read,  "  Howbeit  that  is  not  first  which 
is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is  natural; 
then  that  which  is  spiritual.  The  first 
man  is  of  the  earth,  earthy:  the  second 
man  is  of  heaven."  So  also  in  the  book 
of  the  history  and  the  prophecy  of  life  we 
read  that  the  first  chapter  of  evolution  is 
of  the  earth;  the  second  volume,  which 
is  not  yet  finished  but  only  begun  in  our 
spiritual  being  and  possibilities,  is  of  a 
higher  element.  "And  as  we  have  borne 
the  image  of  the  earthy,  we  shall  also  bear 
the  image  of  the  heavenly."  There  is  no 
breach  of  continuity ;  it  is  all  orderly  and 
progressive ;  it  is  life  rising  from  the  dust, 
and  growing  to  its  perfect  flower  and 
fruitage.  And  in  this  continuity  of  life, 
death  also  is  recognized  as  necessary  and 
useful,  both  in  the  inspired  chapter  of 
the  resurrection,  and  in  the  Scripture  of 
nature ;  for  do  we  not  read  in  both :  "  Thou 
foolish  one,  that  which  thou  thyself  sow- 
est  is  not  quickened,  except  it  die  "? 

Our  recent  biological  science  may  fur- 
nish us  at  this  point  an  analogy  of  help 


112       FINAL   DISCHARGE  OF   DEATH 

also  to  the  spiritual  imagination,  if  we 
endeavor  to  conceive  of  the  life  of  the 
resurrection.  In  working  out  the  theory 
of  a  separation  in  the  process  of  organiza- 
tion between  the  cells  of  the  body  which 
are  mortal,  and  the  imperishable  germ- 
plasm,  which  is  regarded  as  the  bearer  of 
all  the  inherited  and  formative  powers  of 
the  body,  Weismann  maintains  that  the 
living  germ  not  only  persists  and  is  poten- 
tially immortal,  but  also  that  "under 
favorable  conditions  "  it  seems  capable  of 
surrounding  itself  with  a  new  body.  *  This 
biological  speculation  is  far  from  being 
accepted  science,  and  we  would  build 
upon  its  tentative  basis  no  religious  su- 
perstructure. But  as  a  conception,  which 
is  held  to  be  admissible  in  a  working- 
theory  of  biology,  we  may  use  it  as  an 
analogy  in  aid  of  the  spiritual  imagina- 
tion. With  this  biological  conception  in 
mind,  even  if  it  is  no  more  than  a  scien- 
tific imagination,  we  may  ask,  if  a  vital 
germ  can  thus  be  supposed  to  gather 
around  itself,  from  material  elements 
*  Essays  upon  Heredity,  I.,  p.  123. 


FINAL   DISCHARGE  OF   DEATH       113 

under  favorable  conditions,  a  new  and 
better  body  of  life,  what  may  not  a  spir- 
itual germ  —  the  energy  of  a  living  soul 
—  prove  capable  of  selecting  for  its  use, 
from  elements  still  more  ethereal,  for  the 
celestial  body  of  its  continued  thought  and 
love? 

The  philosophic  argument  for  immor- 
tality takes  up  the  scientific  presump- 
tions, which  we  have  been  reviewing,  and 
sets  them  in  the  larger  logic  of  the  moral 
order  of  the  universe;  it  finds  the  su- 
preme probability  of  life  after  death  in  the 
spiritual  worth  of  life.  It  would  carry 
us  beyond  the  limits  of  our  present  more 
definite  inquiry,  should  we  seek  to  pur- 
sue this  philosophic  argument  along  those 
high  and  luminous  ranges  of  reasoning 
where  Plato  walks,  discoursing  with  the 
divine  ideas ;  and  there  follow  him  a  noble 
company  of  minds,  to  whom,  as  to  the 
Master  of  them  all,  it  has  been  revealed 
that  the  life  is  more  than  the  food  which 
nature's  age-long  toil  has  prepared  for  it, 
and  that  man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone. 


114       FINAL   DISCHARGE   OF  DEATH 

But  we  may  pause  for  a  moment  to  observe 
somewhat  more  particularly  how,  at  this 
point  in  our  study  of  evolution,  the  philo- 
sophic argument  for  immortality  may  take 
a  sure  departure  from  the  general  pre- 
sumptions of  evolutionary  science. 

A  definite  and  clear  line  of  philosophic 
reasoning  towards  belief  in  immortality 
proceeds  from  the  fact  that  life,  as  mani- 
fested in  man's  self-knowledge,  has  become 
an  extra-physical  potency.  It  is  still  in-' 
woven  with  the  meshes  of  fine  molecu- 
lar changes;  but  it  is  a  life  which  has 
escaped  from  bondage  to  a  purely  physical 
service.  Mind  does  not  now  exist  in 
a  body  merely  as  a  physical  adaptation 
for  the  better  preservation  of  the  body. 
Indeed,  if  mind  were  only  a  means  for 
the  better  discharge  of  bodily  functions, 
natural  selection  might  long  ere  this  have 
eliminated  a  too  intense  and  consuming 
self-consciousness  from  the  perfection 
of  animal  existence.  Natural  selection 
would  dispense  with  an  overgrowth  of 
mind  as  a  variation  not  advantageous  to 
the  physical  well-being.  To  some  degree 


FINAL   DISCHARGE   OP   DEATH       115 

natural  selection  among  men  works 
towards  a  reduction  of  mental  develop- 
ment, although  this  tendency  is  interfered 
with  and  superseded  in  human  history  by 
a  higher  law  of  spiritual  selection  for 
more  than  physical  uses.  Consciousness, 
however,  is  not  necessary  to  a  discharge 
of  the  purely  physical  functions,  and  often 
too  much  of  it  seriously  interferes  with 
them.  But  it  is  necessary  to  the  perfec- 
tion of  man.  His  life  is  raised  out  of  the 
physical  process ;  mind  has  no  definite  and 
observed  materiality.  When  subjected 
to  the  most  searching  tests  of  physical 
analysis,  mind  is  found  to  contain  a  re- 
sidual element  —  a  reserved  potency  of 
being  —  which  is  known  directly  in  the 
light  of  thought  and  in  the  glow  of  love. 
To  the  most  expert  mental  physiology  the 
mind  of  man  remains  like  the  mystery  of 
the  prophet's  vision,  —  a  creation  more 
wonderful  than  nature's  most  complex 
mechanisms ;  for  the  "  spirit  of  the  living 
creature  was  in  the  wheels."  So  far,  then, 
from  having  reduced  the  world  of  man  to 
nothing  but  dust  and  ashes,  evolution  pre- 


116       FINAL   DISCHARGE  OF  DEATH 

sents  the  universe  to  our  philosophy  as  ex- 
isting in  two  kinds,  —  matter  and  spirit ; 
the  last  testament  of  God  in  the  creation 
is  offered  in  these  two  kinds;  the  sacra- 
ment of  the  life  is  both  bread  and  wine. 
Matter  and  mind  are  the  emblems  always 
with  us  of  the  real  presence  of  the  one 
unseen  Lord  of  all.  We  must  find  the 
primal  unity,  for  which  all  philosophy 
seeks,  in  the  Giver,  not  in  the  gifts. 
The  Lord  is  one  God;  and  his  creative 
word  is  one  sentence ;  but  it  is  composed 
of  a  noun  and  a  verb,  each  existing  in  re- 
lation to,  and  neither  made  perfect  with- 
out, the  other;  it  is  both  a  substantive  of 
body,  and  an  action  of  the  spirit;  it  is 
both  conjoined,  —  the  matter  of  life,  and 
the  energy  of  will. 

Neither  need  this  philosophic  argument 
for  immortality  be  overburdened  with 
difficulties  which  the  imagination  would 
throw  upon  it,  in  its  inability  to  conceive 
of  a  continued  life  of  the  soul  without 
some  physical  basis  for  its  future  exist- 
ence. The  actuality  of  mind  is  the  living 
fact  which  we  know  in  our  self-conscious- 


FINAL   DISCHARGE  OF  DEATH       117 

ness;  the  conception  of  a  material  sub- 
stance is  a  doubtful  idea,  which  we  add  to 
our  experience  of  the  actual  existence  and 
energy  of  the  mind.  But  this  imagina- 
tion of  some  physical  substance,  or  mate- 
rial basis  for  the  mind,  is  not  necessary  in 
reason  to  its  actual  presence  and  energy. 
Even  in  our  modern  physics  the  primary 
concepts  of  matter,  light,  and  the  ethereal 
transmission  of  energy,  have  become  so 
attenuated  that  they  elude  the  grasp  of 
the  common  imagination  of  men.  Mate- 
riality itself  is  becoming  a  vanishing 
point;  energy  is  known  to  us  as  a  living 
will.8  It  were  a  pure  assumption  to  sup- 
pose that  spirit  must  forever  remain  teth- 
ered to  an  atom.  We  do  not  know  what 
now  is  the  limit  of  its  dependence  upon 
atomic  matter.  Spiritual  energy  may 
have  other  carriage,  and  more  ethereal  con- 
veyance, than  the  motions  of  the  molecules 
which  it  now  makes  subservient  to  its  uses. 
No  ignorance  of  the  possible  future  envi- 
ronment of  our  spiritual  being  can  offset 
present  knowledge  of  its  actual  existence 
and  energy.  The  philosopher,  then,  can- 


118       FINAL  DISCHARGE   OF   DEATH 

not  be  gainsaid  by  the  physicist,  when  he 
affirms  that  the  most  exhaustive  analysis 
of  the  last  product  of  evolution,  man's 
self-consciousness,  reveals  three  extra- 
physical  factors,  —  thought,  love,  and,  as 
the  union  of  these  two,  the  personal  will  to 
live.  These  results,  transcending  as  they 
do  the  physical,  have  been  gained  only 
through  a  long  and  strenuous  struggle  and 
toil  of  life ;  each  of  them  marks  a  victory 
over  the  sensuous  and  the  material. 

Of  the  first  result  it  is  not  enough  to 
say  that  animal  instinct  comes  to  itself  in 
man's  reason.  It  is  truer  to  affirm  that 
the  primal  Intelligence  —  which  formed 
the  microscopic  spindle,  and  wove  the  web 
of  film,  and  divided  with  equal  hand  the 
mystic  rods  within  the  nucleus  of  the  first 
living  cell,  and  which  throughout  the 
whole  development  of  nature  has  followed 
definite  lines  of  variation,  until  in  the 
human  brain  it  has  fashioned  and  fin- 
ished at  last  the  exquisite  mechanism  of 
the  molecules  for  the  touch  of  thought 
and  the  play  of  the  spirit  —  has  itself 
become  manifest  in  the  life,  and  is  in- 


FINAL   DISCHARGE  OP   DEATH       119 

carnate  in  the  Son  of  man  who  knows  the 
Father. 

Of  the  second  of  these  ultimate  results 
of  evolution,  love,  it  is  not  enough  to 
say  that  the  tendency  towards  maternity, 
which  was  hidden  in  the  need  of  rejuve- 
nescence of  the  lowly  protozoan,  possessed 
of  but  a  single  cell,  has  come,  after  ages 
of  waiting  and  of  growth,  to  its  fair  con- 
summation in  "the  evolution  of  a  mother." 
It  is  truer  to  affirm  that  the  Word  of 
Love,  which  was  in  the  beginning  with 
God,  and  which  is  God,  has  reached  the 
supreme  expression  of  its  divine  beatitude 
on  earth  in  the  holy  mother  and  the  child. 
"We  love,"  —  so  said  the  disciple  of  the 
deepest  insight,  thus  making  his  unlim- 
ited word  true  text  for  the  genesis  and 
history  of  all  love,  —  "  because  he  first 
loved  us."  The  book  of  life,  if  read  with 
the  strict  eye  of  the  biologist,  does  not 
run,  according  to  Mr.  Drummond's  happy 
phrase,  "as  a  love  story."  It  is  not  scien- 
tifically true  that  any  ethical  altruism  can 
be  discovered  in  the  law  of  reproduction 
when  considered  as  a  natural  law;  for 


120       FINAL   DISCHARGE  OF   DEATH 

hunger  and  want  —  the  hard  imperative  of 
nutrition  —  may  have  determined  the  first 
meeting  of  Protozoa,  and  it  was  no  love 
match  when  one  Amoeba  first  embraced 
and  enclosed  another  as  its  food,  although 
it  may  thereby  have  set  in  motion  the 
mechanism  for  the  subsequent  division  of 
itself  into  two  daughter-cells.  The  low- 
est and  the  basest,  as  we  deem  it,  lies  at 
the  root  of  the  highest;  and  love  is  always 
a  transfiguration  of  the  natural.  But  Mr. 
Drummond's  characterization  of  the  book 
of  life  as  "a  love  story  "  has  deeper  truth 
in  it  when,  in  St.  John's  vision  of  the 
Spirit,  the  history  of  life  from  beginning 
to  end  is  read  as  the  one  increasing  and 
deepening  story  of  the  Love  which  was 
before  it  with  the  Eternal,  and  which,  as 
the  true  Word,  was  the  light  of  every  man 
coming  into  the  world. 

The  third  ultimate  disclosure  of  our 
human  consciousness,  likewise,  —  the  per- 
sonal will  of  life,  — cannot  be  interpreted 
in  the  terms  of  physical  energies.  Into 
the  spiritual  will  to  live  —  the  will  to  live 
on  and  worthily  —  thought  brings  its  free- 


FINAL   DISCHARGE  OF   DEATH       121 

dom,  and  love  pours  all  its  deathless 
passion.  The  moral  personality  in  its 
spiritual  will  and  action  becomes  one  of 
the  great  and  permanent  powers;  it  is 
an  energy  of  formative  and  organizing 
potency,  superior  to  any  chemical  energy 
which  may  build  up  or  destroy  the  mole- 
cules of  the  body.  It  is  not  lightly  to  be 
dissolved  by  any  changes  or  reactions  of 
its  environment.  Man's  spiritual  will  of 
life  is  more  than  the  tendency  towards 
the  preservation  of  the  species,  which  per- 
vades the  mute  unconscious  prophesying 
of  nature's  struggle  for  existence.  It  is 
an  acquisition  of  a  higher  tendency;  it  is 
the  attainment  of  a  definite  and  formative 
energy  —  a  constructive  and  reconstructive 
spiritual  determination.  It  is  a  personal 
will  to  live  always  and  worthily,  which 
not  only  characterizes  man  in  his  achieve- 
ment or  his  heroism ;  it  does  not  fail  him, 
it  reveals  often  its  transcendent  virtue,  in 
the  hour  of  his  weakness  and  his  mortality. 
For  man  does  not  die  as  the  animal  dies ; 
death  comes  not  to  him  as  an  accident  to 
which  he  submits  in  passive  dissolution ; 


122       FINAL   DISCHARGE   OF   DEATH 

it  is  an  event  of  life  which  he  will  meet 
with  a  foreseeing  and  concentrated  energy 
of  his  spirit.  The  brute  that  perishes 
wanders  from  the  herd,  and  lies  down  in 
the  forest  by  itself  to  die;  man  gathers 
his  friends  about  him,  and  with  memories 
and  hopes  of  love  given  and  received,  he 
passes  on,  greeting  his  future.  Man  will 
take  thoughtful  part  in  his  own  dying,  and 
show  spiritual  possession  of  himself  as  he 
passes  hence.  "Man,"  said  Pascal,  in 
one  of  his  profoundest  Thoughts,  "knows 
that  he  dies."  His  departure  seems  at 
times,  when  a  great,  clear  soul  goes  before 
us,  as  the  march  and  the  triumph  of  a  spirit 
into  the  unseen  and  the  eternal.  This 
spiritual  supremacy  over  death  was  wit- 
nessed in  its  supernal  manifestation,  when 
He  whose  will  of  life  had  been  to  do  the 
Father's  will,  was  nailed  to  a  Cross,  and 
who,  when  he  had  cried  with  a  loud  voice, 
said,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend 
my  spirit:  and  having  said  this,  he  gave 
up  the  ghost." 

When  known  and  interpreted  together 
as  the  living  unity  of  consciousness,  these 


FINAL  DISCHARGE  OP   DEATH       123 

three,  —  thought,  love,  and  the  personal 
will  to  live  always  and  worthily,  —  present 
to  philosophy  a  final  extra-physical  product 
and  issue  of  the  whole  evolution  of  life. 
It  is  not  merely  a  last  flower  on  the  tree 
of  life,  blooming  but  to  decay;  it  is  life's 
ripe  fruit  which  contains  within  itself  the 
seed  of  a  new  beginning.  And  if  we 
keep  our  thought  simply  true  to  our  self- 
knowledge,  it  is  perceived  to  be  the  seed 
of  the  spiritual  order  which  has  been  sown 
in  the  natural;  it  is  the  beginning  on 
earth  of  the  heavenly.  In  this  living  per- 
sonality Life  is  raised  to  its  highest  power, 
and  is  possessed  in  itself  of  energy  which 
the  outward  universe  may  not  destroy. 
The  matter  of  all  the  spheres  shall  wait  to 
do  it  service.  It  is  that  "Holy  One," 
which  "  cannot  see  corruption. "  *  Of  Him 
all  the  prophets  and  apostles  of  Life  from 
the  beginning  declare  that  "  it  is  not  pos- 
sible "  that  He  should  be  holden  of  death,  f 

*  Acts  ii.  24-27. 

t  This  reasoning  from  the  personal  will  to  live  the 
author  has  presented  somewhat  more  fully  in  its  ethi- 
cal implications  in  his  Personal  Creeds,  pp.  134-141, 
and  Christian  Ethics,  pp.  336-339. 


124       FINAL   DISCHARGE   OF   DEATH 

We  have  thus  reached  a  position  where 
the  lines  of  the  argument  for  immortality, 
hitherto  generally  advanced,  have  come  to 
a  close.  With  these  scientific  presump- 
tions in  mind,  and  in  the  strength  of  the 
philosophic  argument  for  immortality  from 
the  worth  of  personal  life  and  in  view  of 
the  moral  order  of  the  world,  we  are  now 
ready  to  proceed  again  in  the  direction  of 
our  present  more  specific  inquiry  concern- 
ing the  use  and  function  of  death.  One 
further  and  confirmatory  step  will  be  ren- 
dered possible,  if  we  turn  now  to  the 
facts  and  conclusions  which  we  gained  in 
our  first  two  chapters.  Taken  together 
with  one  other  law  of  nature,  still  to  be 
mentioned,  which  our  evolutionary  sci- 
ence has  disclosed,  we  shall  see  that  the 
natural  law  of  the  utility  of  death  opens 
before  us  still  another  intimation  of  im- 
mortality. 

We  have  already  observed  that  death 
enters  at  a  point  of  service  for  life.  It 
is  advantageous  to  the  preservation  of  the 
species  that  certain  organized  forms  should 
be  left  by  the  wayside  to  perish.  Under 


FINAL  DISCHARGE  OF   DEATH       125 

the  law  of  natural  selection  the  rein- 
forced cells  survive;  with  the  admission 
of  the  improved  method  of  fertiliza- 
tion, the  unfertilized  cells  are  gradually 
dropped,  and  after  living  awhile  to  them- 
selves alone,  they  naturally  die.  More- 
over, in  organisms  which  have  acquired  a 
body  composed  of  several  cells  (MetazooT), 
and  in  which  distinctions  of  sex  are  more 
marked,  death  has  become  the  rule.  It 
is  the  price,  we  are  told,  which  is  "paid 
for  a  body,"  and  such  animals  "die  be- 
cause they  have  to  reproduce."*  Hence 
both  sex  and  death  take  place  and  rank 
among  nature's  utilities.  Death,  then,  has 
reason  in  it,  so  long  as  it  has  use.  Death 
has  a  selective  and  adaptive  function  to 
fulfil,  so  long  as  sex  continues  to  repro- 
duce, to  elevate,  to  enhance  and  beautify 
life.  Shall  there  come  a  time  —  is  there  a 
pitch  and  perfection  of  spiritual  organiza- 
tion to  be  reached  —  when  neither  of  these 
first  friends  and  helpmeets  of  life  shall  be 
longer  needed?  Shall  life  at  last  attain 

*  The  Evolution  of  Sex,  Geddes  and  Thomson, 
pp.  256,  260. 


126       FINAL   DISCHARGE  OP  DEATH 

a  freedom  and  perfection  where  the  con- 
stant attendance  of  these  two  servants, 
sex  and  death,  shall  be  no  longer  useful, 
and  may  therefore  be  dispensed  with  ? 

We  know  that  it  is  a  principle  of  evolu- 
tion that  an  organ  through  disuse  may 
become  rudimentary.  Without  raising  at 
this  point  the  question,  which  is  still 
mooted  between  different  schools  of  biolo- 
gists, how  a  functionless  organ  may  lapse, 
and  eventually  be  disinherited,  it  is 
enough  for  our  purpose  to  point  to  the 
admitted  fact  that  nature  does  not  keep 
too  long  in  her  economy  any  useless  ser- 
vant. In  the  higher  animals  muscles  and 
bones,  and  entire  structures,  which  were 
advantageous  to  organisms  lower  down, 
have  become  rudimentary,  and  in  some 
instances  have  disappeared.  Ceasing  to 
have  "selection-value, "  —  value  of  advan- 
tage in  the  maintenance  and  struggle  of 
existence, — they  lose  "survival- value," 
and  tend  to  disappear.  There  is  a  silent, 
yet  constant,  process  of  elimination  in 
nature,  which  ever  accompanies  the  posi- 


FINAL   DISCHARGE   OF   DEATH       127 

tive  process  of  evolution.  What  nature 
has  no  further  use  for,  —  give  her  time, 
and  she  will  bury  it  out  of  sight.  It  is  a 
part  of  the  intelligent  economy  of  nature 
to  reduce  the  useless  to  its  lowest  possible 
terms.  Throughout  nature  the  Life  is 
ever  proclaiming  to  those  who  have  ears 
to  hear,  "Follow  me;  let  the  dead  bury 
their  dead." 

In  view,  then,  of  this  law  of  the  dimi- 
nution and  ultimate  disappearance  of  the 
useless  from  the  order  and  employ  of 
nature,  we  may  at  once  raise  the  further 
presumption  whether  death  likewise  shall 
not  be  discarded,  if  ever  there  shall  arise 
a  being  so  constituted  and  so  endowed 
that  his  further  subjection  to  death  would 
cease  to  be-  useful  to  the  ends  of  life  ?  It 
will  also  be  antecedently  probable  that,  if 
in  the  ascent  of  life  a  height  and  perfec- 
tion is  reached  where  sex  shall  be  no 
longer  advantageous,  and  therefore  may 
be  discarded,  the  distinctions  of  sex  will 
then  vanish;  and  hence  at  that  same 
point,  through  that  same  door  opening 
into  life's  further  perfection,  death  also 


128       FINAL   DISCHARGE  OF   DEATH 

with  sex  shall  go  out,  never  to  return 
again.  The  question,  therefore,  of  our 
immortality  assumes  this  new  form  and 
takes  on  this  further  natural  probability, 
as  it  may  now  be  put  in  this  more  specific 
way:  Has  not  the  evolution  of  life, 
through  sex  and  death,  among  other 
means,  reached  in  our  spiritual  being  and 
possibility  that  kind  of  existence,  that 
point  of  perfection,  intended  from  the 
beginning,  in  which  it  has  become  capa- 
ble of  surviving  the  death  of  a  body  no 
longer  fitted  to  its  use,  arid  of  persisting 
afterwards  in  some  other  form  and  rela- 
tionship, in  which  it  shall  no  longer  need 
death  or  regeneration  to  help  it  further  on  ? 
Or,  to  put  in  other  phrasing  the  same 
thought  of  death:  Has  not  life  in  our 
spiritual  nature  gone  already  so  far  as  to 
have  no  more  need  of  dying  in  order  that 
in  others  beyond  us  the  fulness  of  life  may 
be  attained  ?  Death,  we  may  see  and  be- 
lieve, as  the  means  of  disentangling  this 
body,  in  which  the  old  order  ends,  from 
the  spiritual,  in  which  the  new  order 
begins,  must  still  have  place  and  func- 


FINAL   DISCHARGE   OF   DEATH       129 

tion ;  and  hence  it  remains  a  mortal  neces- 
sity for  us  all;  but  after  the  dissolution 
of  this  mortality,  it  will  have  no  more 
dominion  over  us,  for  it  can  be  of  no  fur- 
ther service  or  use  in  carrying  forward 
life  to  its  perfection.  There  shall  be  for 
the  perfected  life  of  spirits  no  need  of  an 
endless  series  of  transformations,  of  births 
and  rebirths ;  individual  deaths  will  not  be 
needed  for  the  preservation  of  the  species 
of  perfected  spirits,  for  death  shall  have 
fulfilled  all  possible  function  when  this 
mortal  shall  have  been  left  behind,  and, 
as  no  longer  useful,  even  according  to  the 
principle  of  natural  selection,  death  will 
have  disappeared  forever. 

For  this  conclusion  there  is  an  immense 
presumption  at  least  in  our  spiritual  favor 
from  the  natural  history  of  life  and  of 
death.  For  it  is  only  reasoning  that  in 
this  respect,  as  in  others,  nature  will  be 
proved  to  be  of  one  piece ;  that  the  end  of 
her  processes  shall  be  in  accordance  with 
her  beginnings;  that  the  same  intelli- 
gence which  is  observed  in  her  initial 
utilities  will  be  found  also  to  seal  and  to 


130        FINAL   DISCHARGE   OF   DEATH 

consummate  her  ultimate  utilities.  If, 
then,  death  can  be  proved  to  have  come  in 
under  the  law  of  natural  selection  and  for 
use,  under  the  same  law,  when  it  is  no 
longer  useful,  it  may  rationally  be  sup- 
posed that  it  shall  go  out.  It  shall  disap- 
pear through  the  door  exactly  opposite  that 
through  which  it  entered;  for  its  course 
has  been  throughout  straightforward,  de- 
termined by  the  same  principle  and  end 
in  nature ;  for  use  it  came,  and  because  no 
longer  useful  it  goes  out.  Utility  and 
uselessness  —  these  opposite  points  mark 
its  entrance  and  its  exit ;  —  and  its  whole 
mission  lies  as  an  intelligible  service  be- 
tween this  beginning  and  this  end  of  it. 
Death,  we  have  been  observing,  was  not 
introduced  at  the  outset  for  the  sake  of 
annihilating  life,  but  that  it  might  help 
and  hasten  life  on,  until  it  should  reach 
its  present  point  of  comparative  indepen- 
dence in  our  spiritual  being.  Up  to  us, 
and  up  to  the  extent  of  its  service  in 
breaking  down,  and  in  time  removing 
from  sight  every  worn  and  senescent  body 
of  this  flesh,  death  has  been  naturally  use- 


FLNAL  DISCHARGE  OF   DEATH       131 

fill,  and  it  fulfils  faithfully  its  appointed 
function;  but  it  would  not  be  advanta- 
geous to  us  personally,  or  to  the  spiritual 
ends  of  further  life,  when  largely  con- 
ceived, should  death  follow  life  farther, 
beyond  the  body  and  into  the  soul.  When 
it  comes  close  to  our  minds,  our  powers  of 
thought,  our  capacity  of  immortal  love, 
death,  in  the  sense  of  their  definite  arrest, 
or  a  final  annihilation  of  their  identity, 
would  become  an  enemy;  it  would  lose 
its  character,  and  cease  to  be  the  natural 
friend  of  life  which  it  has  always  been. 
In  the  end,  therefore,  its  work  done,  it 
shall  be  discharged.  It  shall  no  more 
have  dominion  over  us. 

This  discharge  and  ultimate  disappear- 
ance of  death  for  the  human  race  as  a 
whole  may  be  a  process  which  shall  re- 
quire a  whole  world-age  for  its  comple- 
tion; as  nature  always  takes  time  to 
render  any  organ  functionless  and  rudi- 
mentary. But  the  present  reigning  of 
death,  according  to  this  view,  is  the  ap- 
pointed time  and  process  of  its  gradual 
completion  of  its  work  and  the  ending  of 


132        FINAL   DISCHARGE   OF   DEATH 

its  stewardship.  When  shall  death  be  no 
more?  The  Scripture  answers,  when  the 
Lord  of  life  shall  come,  then  the  reign  of 
perfect  life  shall  be  manifested.  From 
our  science  of  the  law  of  the  service  of 
death,  the  answer  is  echoed  back,  —  death 
shall  go  when  no  longer  useful  for  life. 
When  will  death  cease  to  reign  ?  When 
life  can  better  go  on  without  death,  but 
not  till  then.  So  long  as  it  can  help, 
death,  life's  servant,  shall  remain,  doing 
God's  will.  So  long  as  the  human  race 
needs  in  this  way  of  suffering  to  be  made 
perfect,  God  will  keep  death  in  his  earthly 
employ.  But  God  will  keep  no  servant 
in  his  house,  when  the  service  is  no  longer 
required  for  his  household.  It  is  contrary 
to  the  divine  economy  of  force,  which 
nature  teaches,  to  keep  anything  beyond 
its  appointed  use.  The  economy  of  the 
creation  dismisses  useless  servants.  The 
goodness  of  the  Lord  of  all  will  put  a  stop 
to  death  also,  when  He  can  do  no  more 
good  through  it. 

The  Biblical  doctrine  of  the  resurrection 
assures  us  that  at  last  death  shall  be  swal- 


FINAL   DISCHARGE   OF   DEATH       133 

lowed  up  of  life.  It  will  disappear  in  the 
abounding  life.  Death,  we  are  told,  shall 
be  no  more.  Then,  at  last,  when  life  in 
its  spiritual  renewal  and  power  shall  have 
gained  the  heights  of  immortality,  the 
ladder  may  be  cast  aside  up  which  it  has 
climbed,  —  the  long,  arduous  ladder  of 
life,  in  which  birth  and  death,  and  life 
again,  have  been  the  ever-recurring 
rounds. 

One  other  feature  of  the  Biblical  dis- 
closure of  immortal  life  arrests  at  this 
point  our  attention ;  it  is  a  feature  which 
corresponds  with  singular  truthfulness  to 
an  aspect  of  the  law  of  death  in  nature 
which  our  science  is  unveiling.  We  have 
already  noticed  the  close  and  even  star- 
tling connection  between  the  entrance  of 
death  and  of  sex  into  life,  and  the  con- 
stant relation  also  of  these  two  methods 
of  the  reproduction  and  advancement  of 
life.  The  one  attends  the  other  through- 
out life,  from  the  first  rudimentary  begin- 
nings in  the  Protozoa  up  to  the  purest  joy 
and  the  deepest  sorrows  of  human  homes. 
The  connection  throughout  nature  between 


134       FINAL   DISCHARGE  OF   DEATH 

death  and  sex  is  so  intimate,  so  constant, 
so  mutually  serviceable,  that  it  is  not 
going  too  far  to  say  that  the  one  probably 
could  not  have  existed  without  the  other. 

If  we  object  to  the  presence  of  the  one 
in  nature,  we  must  give  up  the  hope  of 
the  other.  God  has  joined  the  two  to- 
gether in  the  service  of  life,  and  for  its 
final  glory,  which  is  His  glory.  Now  the 
Scriptural  fact,  which  this  connection 
renders  strikingly  significant,  is  that  in 
the  same  word  in  which  the  Christ  an- 
nounces the  end  of  the  reign  of  death,  he 
declares  the  end,  likewise,  of  the  reign  of 
sex:  they  both  belong  to  this  world,  and 
shall  cease,  as  no  longer  of  service,  in  the 
realm  of  the  spiritual.  As  nature  an- 
nounces the  entrance  of  both  at  the  same 
time  into  the  world,  so  the  gospel  of  the 
resurrection  announces  the  departure  of 
both  together  from  the  heavenly  life: 
"For  in  the  resurrection  they  neither 
marry,  nor  are  given  in  marriage,  but  are 
as  angels  in  heaven."  * 

Life,  having  drawn  from  nature  its  sub- 
*  Matt.  xxii.  30. 


FINAL  DISCHARGE   OF   DEATH       135 

tlest  essence,  and  having  been  endowed 
with  the  last  and  richest  gifts  of  the 
creation,  being  already  raised  in  man,  both 
male  and  female,  to  the  spiritual  inde- 
pendence of  a  child  of  God,  and  possessed 
of  the  potencies  of  thought  and  of  love  in 
the  highest,  when  through  suffering  and 
death  it  shall  at  last  be  made  perfect,  will 
have  need  no  more  in  its  immortality  of  in- 
crease or  of  diminution,  of  generation  or 
of  regeneration,  of  marriage  or  of  being 
given  in  marriage ;  for  love  shall  be  made 
complete,  and  what  God  hath  already 
joined  together  in  the  fidelities  and  the 
joy  of  human  hearts  and  human  homes 
shall  continue,  beyond  power  of  time  or 
death  henceforth  to  put  asunder;  for  in 
the  resurrection  they  are  as  the  angels  of 
God  in  heaven. 


CHAPTER  V 


ONE  of  the  difficulties  which  has  ren- 
dered the  theological  mind  reluc- 
tant to  accept  the  evidence  in  behalf  of 
the  theory  of  evolution,  is  the  apparent 
divergence  between  the  evolutionary  idea 
of  the  rise  of  man,  and  the  Biblical  narra- 
tive of  his  creation  and  his  fall.  We  are 
concerned  in  this  essay  with  this  diver- 
gence of  view  only  so  far  as  it  relates  to 
the  origin  and  the  use  of  natural  death; 
but  the  principles  which  we  shall  follow 
in  comparing  the  Biblical  and  the  evolu- 
tionary views  of  the  law  of  death  may  be 
applied  also  to  other  points  of  resemblance 
or  difference  between  scientific  and  Bibli- 
cal teachings. 

In  the  conception  of  death  which  we 
have  derived  from  a  biological  study  of  it, 
138 


THE  TWO   VIEWS  OF   DEATH         137 

it  is  regarded  as  part  of  the  natural  econ- 
oiay  of  life;  in  the  conception  of  death 
which  we  derive  from  the  narrative  of  the 
fall  in  the  Bible,  it  is  represented  as  a 
punishment  in  the  moral  economy  of 
man's  history.  The  two  conceptions  are 
divergent,  because  they  are  reached  from 
different  levels  and  from  distant  points 
of  view.  The  two  representations  are 
different,  but  not  conflicting,  because  they 
depict  the  same  great  range  of  facts, 
although  not  in  the  same  way  or  under 
the  same  light.  An  attempt  to  harmonize 
them  by  laying  the  one  representation  over 
the  other,  and  seeking  to  make  their  vari- 
ant lines  match,  would  succeed  no  better 
than  have  most  of  the  labored  endeavors 
to  reconcile  religion  and  science  by  artifi- 
cial harmonies  of  Genesis  and  geology. 

Not  by  reading  science  and  the  Bible  as 
two  parallel  columns  of  revelation,  which 
must  be  made  exactly  to  correspond,  are 
we  to  do  justice  to  the  truth  of  either,  or 
to  discover  their  real  relation  and  mutual 
helpfulness.  The  right  method,  and  the 
only  profitable  method,  is  to  determine  the 


138        THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH 

position  which  each  has  gained,  and  to 
observe  the  aspect  of  the  world  and  of  the 
life  of  man  which  has  been  opened  up 
from  each  point  of  view.  Then  we  may 
be  able  to  compare  different  conceptions, 
to  determine  further  whether  two  specta- 
tors have  been  surveying  the  same  range 
of  facts,  and  to  judge  also  whether  obser- 
vations taken  from  approaches  so  far  apart 
may  be  comprehended  in  one  larger  knowl- 
edge of  the  truth. 

The  scientific  approach  to  the  whole 
subject  of  the  origin  and  law  of  death  is 
entirely  from  the  side  of  natural  law,  and 
it  follows  exclusively  the  course  of  the 
natural  development  of  life.  It  proceeds 
with  instruments  of  exact  measurement, 
and  traces  the  processes  of  nature  from 
antecedent  to  consequent  as  one  orderly 
and  measurable  evolution.  Whenever  it 
reaches  a  point  where  its  measuring  chain 
can  be  carried  no  further,  and  beyond 
which  there  lies  something  vast  and  vague, 
which  cannot  be  quantitatively  deter- 
mined, then  it  has  found  the  limits  of  its 
field,  —  positive  science  has  no  concern 


THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH         139 

with  the  immeasurable.  Any  antecedent 
which  cannot  be  followed  into  its  conse- 
quent, or  any  consequent  which  has  no 
determinable  antecedent,  would  lie  beyond 
the  range  of  purely  scientific  investiga- 
tion. The  super-physical  lies  beyond  the 
telescope,  and  beneath  the  microscope, 
although  it  may  be  near  as  thought  to 
the  mind,  and  close  as  love  to  the  heart. 
When  therefore  in  a  scientific  way  we 
reach  the  conclusion  that  death  falls  into 
the  line  of  evolution,  and  is  an  adapta- 
tion to  the  further  ends  of  life,  we  have 
thereby  apprehended  the  law  of  death  from 
one  distinct  side  of  our  possible  knowl- 
edge of  it.  It  is  precisely  the  view  of 
death  which  discloses  itself  to  an  eye 
looking  from  the  level  of  the  principle  of 
natural  selection,  and  following  the  courses 
of  natural  law.  Beyond  this  and  above  it 
biology  as  a  science  cannot  go.  More- 
over, so  far  as  the  strictly  scientific  view 
extends,  death  is  seen  to  fulfil  the  same 
function  in  the  life  of  man  which  it  is 
found  to  have  discharged  in  the  evolution 
of  life  below  man.  This  determination, 


140         THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH 

however,  of  the  natural  function  of  death 
does  not  prevent  or  contradict  any  other 
possible  meaning  and  use  of  it,  which  may 
be  discovered  when  it  is  contemplated  in 
its  relation  to  some  other  economy  than 
that  of  the  physical  order. 

The  Biblical  point  of  view,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  moral  and  religious;  when  re- 
garded from  that  direction,  there  is  no 
occasion  for  determining  with  exactness 
its  natural  place  and  use.  The  motive 
of  the  Biblical  narrative  is  man's  relation 
to  the  moral  law,  and  what  is  observed  is 
the  work  of  death  also  under  that  law. 
The  Biblical  concern  with  the  universal 
fact  of  death  is  a  human  concern  with  it, 
—  what  is  its  significance  in  the  moral 
destiny  of  man  ? 

The  entire  unconcern  of  the  Biblical  nar- 
rative about  the  existence  of  death  before 
man  in  the  world,  is  to  be  explained  from 
this  definition  of  its  point  of  view.  The 
scope  of  its  survey  is  limited  by  the  aim 
of  its  teaching  to  the  human  interest  in 
death.  It  is  a  part  of  the  providential 
order  of  man's  history  that  the  human 


THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH        141 

interest,  which  is  also  the  religious, 
always  precedes  a  purely  scientific  inter- 
est in  things.  The  human,  religious  con- 
cern with  life  and  death  is  first  and  last ; 
the  intellectual  interest  is  intermediate. 
Hence  in  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis  the 
connection  of  the  law  of  death  with  the 
law  of  sin  is  the  central  and  absorbing 
topic.  The  chosen  prophets  of  humanity 
can  remain  unobserving  and  uninterested 
spectators  of  the  prevalence  of  death 
throughout  the  animal  creation,  because 
they  are  supremely  concerned  with  the 
entrance  of  death  into  the  tragedy  of 
human  history.  This  human  and  reli- 
gious interest,  which  comes  naturally  first 
in  man's  life  and  in  his  Bible,  may  lead 
in  time  to  an  intellectual  interest,  and 
even  provoke  a  spirit  of  scientific  inquiry. 
We  find  the  manifestations  of  this  ten- 
dency within  the  covers  of  the  Bible  itself 
in  some  of  the  Wisdom-literature,  which 
was  not  excluded  from  the  Old  Testament. 
When  later  on,  in  the  increase  of  knowl- 
edge, man  comes  to  take  a  general  scien- 
tific interest  in  the  world  about  him,  and 


142        THE  TWO   VIEWS  OF   DEATH 

with  curious  intellect  searches  out  its  oc- 
cult processes  and  laws,  his  science  may 
seem  for  a  while  to  conflict  with  his  faith ; 
in  reality  it  will  prove  to  be  only  an  in- 
termediate knowledge  between  his  primi- 
tive and  his  final  trust  in  the  Eternal. 
If,  then,  as  one  result  of  this  leisurely 
and  protracted  study  of  the  outward  world, 
the  universal  prevalence  of  death  shall 
become  more  intelligible  as  an  orderly  fact 
and  utility  of  nature,  then  the  gaining  of 
this  new  view  from  a  different  interest  in 
life  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  necessary 
abandonment  of  the  older  faith;  on  the 
contrary,  it  may  prove  to  be  a  needed  com- 
plement to  it,  —  a  departure  from  it  which 
returns  enriched  to  it.  The  new  view 
may  enable  us  to  set  the  moral  relations 
of  death  to  man  in  some  larger  interpreta- 
tion. The  Biblical  view  of  death  may  be 
found  to  extend  the  lower  view  of  its 
natural  function  and  use,  instead  of  con- 
tradicting it.  It  may  show  that  as  an 
original  adaptation  of  nature  it  has  also 
aptitudes  for  higher  use  in  the  moral  and 
spiritual  order  of  the  world. 


THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH         143 

No  one  would  expect,  indeed,  to  find  an 
exact  correspondence  between  a  picture 
of  a  landscape  which  had  been  taken  on 
the  level  of  the  scene  depicted,  and  another 
view  of  it  which  is  opened  as  one  looks 
down  from  a  mountain-top.  The  same 
facts  will  be  observed,  but  in  a  different 
perspective,  and  in  a  changed  light.  But 
though  the  two  pictures  cannot  be  har- 
monized in  the  sense  of  being  made  to 
overlap  and  correspond,  line  for  line,  and 
point  by  point,  we  may  expect  that  in  both, 
however  different  may  be  the  perspective, 
the  color,  or  the  light  thrown  upon  the 
scene,  we  shall  recognize  the  same  general 
features,  and  know  that  we  have  two  dif- 
ferent views  of  the  same  watercourses, 
fields,  or  villages.  The  one  view  will  not 
belie  the  other.  Similarly,  the  natural 
and  the  Biblical  view  of  death  may  be  seen 
to  complete  each  other.  These  two  state- 
ments hold  true  of  the  moral  conception  of 
death,  which  theology  gains  chiefly  from 
the  Bible,  and  the  view  of  it  to  be  ob- 
served on  the  level  of  a  scientific  survey 
of  the  facts;  viz.,  (1)  the  moral  view  of 


144         THE  TWO   VIEWS   OP   DEATH 

the  function  of  death  does  not  remove  or 
deny  the  landmarks  of  the  natural  law  of 
death;  (2)  the  later  scientific  knowledge 
of  it  further  shows  how  the  natural  func- 
tions of  death  may  fit  into  and  subserve  its 
uses  in  the  moral  order.  The  moral  and 
religious  idea,  reflected  downwards,  will 
not  throw  confusion  over  the  scientific 
observation;  and  the  truth  observed  in 
nature,  reflecting  its  light  upwards,  will 
serve  to  clarify  and  illustrate  the  moral 
and  spiritual  conception. 

Thus  it  is  true  that  there  is  nothing  in 
the  Biblical  conception  of  the  moral  func- 
tion of  death  which  conflicts  with  the  ap- 
pearance of  death  as  a  fact  in  nature,  or  is 
incompatible  with  the  part  which  it  is 
seen  to  play  in  the  natural  development  of 
life.  As  closely  related  and  successive 
steps  in  the  course  of  moral  development, 
the  narratives  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  bring 
out  these  primal  and  dominant  facts:  the 
spiritual  beginning  of  the  creation;  the 
orderly  process  of  it  through  a  succession 
of  creative  days;  the  introduction  of  life 
from  God;  the  differentiation  of  sex  in 


THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF  DEATH         145 

nature,  and  especially  in  man;  the  fall, 
the  awakening  to  moral  consciousness, 
and  the  entrance  of  death  (after  man  had 
been  made  male  and  female);  and  still 
further  the  acquired  character  of  death  for 
man  as  a  penalty  for  his  sin.  Death  be- 
comes, as  it  was  not  originally,  a  terror 
and  a  curse ;  it  wears  henceforth  a  puni- 
tive aspect  to  man's  guilty  conscience. 
None  of  these  primal  facts  of  the  creation 
are  described  in  the  Biblical  narrative 
exactly  as  one  writing  a  natural  history 
of  the  world  would  see  and  define  them ; 
—  indeed,  our  most  recent  biology  is  not 
equal  to  the  task  of  writing  an  exact  nat- 
ural history  of  the  origins  of  things;  — 
but  in  the  Bible  these  facts  are  seen  and 
described  in  their  moral  connections,  and 
as  one  writing  a  moral  history  of  life 
would  depict  them.  The  only  question 
to  be  raised  between  these  two  different 
descriptions,  so  far  as  the  law  of  death  is 
concerned,  is  this:  Is  there  anything  in 
the  natural  origin  and  function  of  death 
which  would  prevent  it  from  acquiring 
the  further  moral  function  which  is  as- 


146         THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH 

cribed  to  it  in  the  Bible  ?  But,  when  put 
in  this  way,  the  question  would  seem  to 
answer  itself.  It  will  repay,  however, 
more  definite  elucidation. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  natural 
death  may  acquire  a  new  function  as  a 
part  of  the  moral  order,  so  that  it  may  be 
truly  represented  as  introduced  for  a  moral 
purpose,  and  as  subserving  a  moral  end. 
Already  existing  as  an  adaptation  for  a 
natural  use,  it  may  be  seized  upon  by  the 
higher  law  of  spiritual  selection,  and 
fitted  to  a  moral  use;  and  also  when  so 
used  in  connection  with  moral  powers, 
it  may  receive  an  increased  retroactive 
energy  as  a  natural  force.  An  animal 
appetite,  for  example,  when  taken  up  into 
the  higher  relations  of  human  affection 
and  care,  may  become  a  means  of  blessing, 
or  a  curse;  and,  moreover,  by  its  moral 
reactions  the  processes  of  the  animal  life 
may  themselves  be  changed  for  better,  or 
for  worse  if  the  natural  appetite  be  mor- 
ally abused.  Appetite,  thus,  in  the  life 
of  man  plays  a  more  important  part  either 
for  good  or  evil  than  it  can  possibly  do  in 


THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH         147 

the  life  of  animals.  It  is  often  true  that 
a  natural  factor  may  be  raised  to  a  moral 
energy,  and  become  a  bane  or  a  blessing. 
So  death  in  the  life  of  man  may  acquire 
secondary  moral  character;  and  this  sec- 
ondary character  may  become  in  time  even 
more  pronounced  than  its  original  natural 
function. 

Such  acquired  adaptations  of  natural 
processes  to  spiritual  uses  are  in  accord- 
ance with  a  certain  principle  of  economy 
which  is  seen  to  obtain  both  in  the  nat- 
ural and  the  spiritual  spheres.  The 
Creator  does  not  seem  to  call  forth  two 
principles  in  nature  to  do  the  work  of  one; 
a  new  factor  is  not  introduced  until  it  is 
needed  to  carry  forward  a  process  which 
existing  factors  can  bring  no  further. 
Scientifically,  this  might  be  designated 
as  the  law  of  the  economy  of  means  in 
nature.  Theistically,  it  might  be  named 
as  the  law  of  spiritual  reserve  in  nature 
and  history.  More  spiritual  energy  is  not 
imparted  at  any  one  moment  in  the  crea- 
tive and  redemptive  order  than  is  required 
for  the  work  to  be  done.  This  principle 


148         THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH 

of  economy  is  illustrated  by  the  develop- 
ment of  beauty  in  nature;  and  we  will 
dwell  upon  this  example  of  it  in  order 
that  this  principle  of  divine  procedure 
may  be  distinctly  apprehended.  Darwin- 
ism has  taught  us  that  the  line  of  beauty 
is  the  line  of  utility.  For  a  considerable 
length,  no  doubt,  a  striking  coincidence  of 
these  two  lines,  that  of  advantage  to  the 
preservation  of  the  species,  and  that  of 
adornment  and  protective  coloration,  may 
be  observed.  We  should  be  far  from  ad- 
mitting, however,  that  this  coincidence 
extends  throughout  the  whole  range  and 
rule  of  the  beautiful  in  nature.  There  is 
an  overplus  of  beauty  in  nature,  which  it 
is  difficult  to  explain  from  any  known 
facts  of  its  utility  for  the  fertilization  of 
seeds,  or  for  any  protective  mimicry  of 
animal  forms  and  colors.  A  theistic  argu- 
ment, to  which  full  justice  has  not  yet 
been  done  in  the  books,  is  to  be  drawn 
from  the  existence  of  this  overplus  of 
beauty  in  nature  beyond  any  known  ad- 
vantage of  it  to  life.  The  excess  of  beauty 
—  the  ornamentation  of  nature  beyond  her 


THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH        149 

vital  uses  —  indicates  that  the  beauti- 
ful exists  for  its  own  sake  as  an  end  in 
nature,  and  consequently  for  the  delight  of 
some  Intelligence,  from  whose  counsels  of 
perfect  form,  true  curvature,  and  harmony 
of  all  colors  it  proceeds.  These  two 
aspects  of  beauty  in  nature,  that  of  use 
and  that  of  ornamentation,  are  distinct  as 
is  the  beauty  of  the  curve  of  a  sword- 
blade,  which  results  from  its  perfect  adap- 
tation to  its  use,  and  the  added  beauty 
of  ornamentation,  which  may  have  been 
traced  on  its  hilt  and  along  the  side  of  the 
blade. 

It  would  carry  us  too  far  afield  to  fol- 
low through  the  flowers  and  among  the 
colors  of  animals,  as  well  as  along  the 
creation's  high  architectural  lines,  this 
theistic  argument  from  the  prevalence  and 
superabundance  of  the  beautiful ;  our  pres- 
ent reference  to  it  concerns  only  the  illus- 
tration which  it  furnishes  of  the  principle 
of  economy  in  nature.  Thus  the  sharp 
curve  of  a  sword-blade  subserves  at  one 
and  the  same  time  a  double  purpose,  —  it 
is  exactly  the  curve  best  fitted  for  its  use, 


150        THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH 

and  also  it  is  a  line  of  beauty.  Through- 
out nature,  to  a  considerable  extent,  but 
by  no  means  universally,  the  two  princi- 
ples of  utility  and  of  beauty  are  seen  to 
be  coincident.9  So  nature  economizes  both 
in  energy  and  in  structure.  Similarly,  on 
the  same  principle  of  adaptive  economy,  a 
natural  process  may  subserve  also  a  moral 
end,  and  a  natural  law  may  carry  a  moral 
purpose.  Thus  death  first  entering  as  a 
natural  adaptation  for  the  benefit  of  life, 
and  continuing  as  a  means  of  natural  de- 
velopment, may  at  the  same  time  become 
the  conveyance  of  a  moral  intent,  and  ful- 
fil also  the  work  of  the  moral  law.  The 
higher  moral  order  fits  into  the  grooves  of 
the  natural  order,  and  for  a  long  distance 
its  wheels,  bearing  the  burden  and  the 
destiny  of  the  moral  history  of  man,  may 
run  along  the  fixed  courses  of  nature. 

Now  it  is  precisely  this  over-use,  so  to 
speak,  this  further  moral  utility,  of  the 
natural  course  of  death,  which  is  brought 
into  prominence  in  the  Biblical  narrative. 
It  is  solely  with  the  acquired  moral  char- 
acter of  death  that  the  Biblical  Genesis  has 


THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH         151 

to  do.  The  Scriptural  narrative,  and  St. 
Paul's  commentary  upon  it,  teach  that 
after  the  introduction  of  sex,  the  fall  of 
man,  and  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil 
consequent  upon  Adam's  sin,  the  life  of 
the  human  race  entered  upon  a  course  of 
retribution  and  redemption,  in  which 
death  became  the  first  curse,  as  well  as  the 
last  gain  of  nature,  for  the  life  of  the 
spirit.  As  the  first  fear  of  death  followed 
Adam's  sin,  and  fear  entered  into  the 
world  through  sin,  so  the  hope  of  life  and 
the  thought  of  dying  as  gain  became  the 
consummation  of  the  Christian  apostle's 
faith.  Death  thus  in  the  moral  order  de- 
notes a  spiritual  crisis;  it  may  usher  in 
life's  last  fear,  or  life's  great  expectation. 
But  this  spiritual  use  of  it  fulfils  its 
natural  law.  For  natural  death  likewise 
marks  a  critical  point  of  evolution.  The 
occurrence  of  death  in  nature,  as  we  have 
seen,  indicates  that  a  decisive  point  has 
been  reached  in  the  development  of  life; 
and  its  earliest  known  working  is  closely 
associated  with  the  differentiation  of  life 
into  increased  and  more  fruitful  com- 


152         THE   TWO   VIEWS   OF  DEATH 

plexity.  The  possibility  also  of  a  fall  and 
degeneration  becomes  a  natural  possibility 
in  the  course  of  the  increasing  specializa- 
tion of  life.  Nature  by  the  growing 
instability  of  her  higher  organic  combi- 
nations furnishes  material  of  life  which 
grows  ever  more  plastic  for  some  future 
free  choice.  With  this  possibility  of  the 
fall  of  man,  natural  death  offers  itself  as 
the  means  and  the  sign  already  furnished 
by  nature  for  the  ends  of  the  moral  order. 
Thus  through  sin  death  enters  into  the 
world,  and  sin  reigns  in  death,*  —  as 
death  had  never  entered,  and  never  had 
been  known  in  the  world,  until  through 
fear  of  it  men  became  all  their  lifetime 
subject  to  bondage.f 

The  readiness  with  which  the  natural 
event  of  death  falls  into  this  Biblical  use 
of  it,  may  be  seen  by  considering  more 
closely  the  intimation  just  given  that  the 
fear  of  death  constitutes  the  larger  part  of 
its  moral  consequence.  Fear  is  a  char- 
acteristic which  natural  death  may  easily 
acquire  when  life  has  gone  so  far  as  to 
*  Horn.  v.  12,  21.  t  Heb.  ii.  16. 


THE   TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH        153 

attain  to  the  possession  of  a  conscience. 
The  contrast  between  the  fear  for  life 
which  leads  an  animal  to  fly  from  imme- 
diate peril,  and  the  human  fear  of  death  is 
at  this  point  instructive.  As  we  have 
before  observed  (p.  47)  animals  are  not 
subject  to  the  anxiety  which  we  may 
suffer  in  anticipation  of  death;  and 
Mr.  Wallace  is  probably  right  when  he 
says  that  "their  constant  watchfulness 
against  danger,  and  even  their  actual 
flight  from  an  enemy,  will  be  the  enjoy- 
able exercise  of  the  powers  and  faculties 
they  possess,  unmixed  with  any  serious 
dread."  *  Death,  which  as  a  natural  event 
may  thus  occur  without  its  approach  being 
feared  or  its  consequences  dreaded,  becomes 
the  moral  crisis  around  which  the  alarms 
of  conscience  may  be  gathered.  Natural 
death,  by  reason  of  its  sometimes  sudden 
occurrence  and  by  the  mystery  of  its  in- 
evitable change,  as  well  as  on  account  of 
nature's  inability  at  once  to  bury  her  dead 
out  of  sight,  becomes  in  man's  knowledge 
of  it  the  momentous  fact,  in  anticipation 
*  Darwinism,  p.  37. 


154         THE   TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH 

of  which  conscience  arouses  the  soul's 
mortal  fear  of  offended  justice,  and  sends 
the  spirit  of  man  as  a  suppliant  to  the 
power  of  an  infinite  grace.  In  this  im- 
pressive moral  use  and  aspect  of  it,  there- 
fore, the  Bible  has  right  and  truth  in 
connecting  natural  death  with  the  curse 
of  sin  and  with  the  need  of  redemption. 

Moreover,  in  this  connection  it  is  a  fact 
of  luminous  meaning  that  the  course  of 
redemption  tends  gradually  to  divest  death 
of  this  moral  consequence  which  it  re- 
ceives from  man's  fear  of  it,  and  to  drop 
it  back  once  more  to  its  primitive  place 
and  original  function  in  the  benign  pro- 
cess of  ascending  life.  In  the  Christian 
hope  of  endless  life  death  loses  its  ac- 
quired character  as  a  curse,  and  becomes 
to  faith  a  natural  and  often  happy  transi- 
tion to  another  and  better  life.  It  is  seen 
to  be  a  part  and  step  in  the  progress  and 
perfecting  of  spiritual  life.  The  descent 
into  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  is 
a  conception  which  belongs  to  the  Old 
Testament.  The  sepulchre  in  the  garden, 
with  the  stone  rolled  away,  and  the  pres- 


THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH         155 

ence  of  the  angel  of  the  Lord  making 
bright  the  darkness  of  the  tomb,  is  the 
sign  of  the  New  Testament  gospel  of 
the  risen  and  ascending  life.  Death  to 
the  Christian  conscience,  becoming  nat- 
ural again,  loses  fear.  "Perfect  love 
casteth  out  fear."*  With  fear  cast  out, 
death  becomes  as  the  gate  of  life;  and 
such  in  the  lower  order  of  nature  we  have 
seen  it  to  be,  — a  further  way  of  life.  So 
again  in  our  moral  consciousness,  as  in 
nature,  death  lies  near  to  birth;  and  the 
first  Christians,  clothing  themselves  in 
white,  commemorate  the  days  when  their 
martyrs  died  as  the  festivals  of  their  birth- 
days into  the  eternal  life. 

The  Biblical  doctrine  of  death  as  a  con- 
sequence of  sin  runs  in  still  another  groove 
of  the  course  of  natural  law ;  for  there  is  to 
be  observed  through  the  life  of  man  a  retro- 
active working  of  sin  upon  the  physical 
process  of  death.  Sin  may  render  death 
naturally  more  evil ;  its  reaction  may  tend 
to  make  it  an  actual  curse.  The  inti- 
mate connection  between  mind  and  matter 
*  1  John  iv.  18. 


156         THE   TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH 

involves  not  only  effects  of  physical  con- 
ditions upon  mental  states,  but  also  reac- 
tions of  the  mental  and  moral  life  upon 
the  physical  well-being.  These  reactions 
of  the  higher  upon  the  lower  life,  accumu- 
lating through  the  courses  of  heredity,  be- 
come notably  marked  in  the  transmission 
of  the  physical  consequences  of  continued 
disobedience  to  nature's  first  command- 
ment of  a  pure  life.  By  these  reactions, 
inherited  and  accumulated  in  the  flesh  and 
the  blood  of  the  race,  death  may  acquire 
a  retributive  character  which  was  not  at 
first  natural  to  it;  and  thus,  in  its  second 
nature,  it  becomes  the  curse  of  sin.  It  is 
true,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  extreme 
specialization  of  living  matter  in  the  body 
and  the  brain  of  man,  and  the  unstable 
complexity  of  his  organization,  capable  as 
it  is  of  adapting  itself  to  the  widest  range 
of  external  conditions,  render  man  liable 
to  new  and  ever-changing  attacks  from  the 
outer  world  upon  his  physical  integrity; 
that  the  very  perfectness  of  his  being  ex- 
poses him  to  peril  of  worse  suffering  and 
more  awful  death.  But  we  cannot  affirm 


THE   TWO   VIEWS   OP   DEATH         157 

that  this  greater  exposure  of  his  organiza- 
tion might  not  have  been  compensated  by 
his  keener  intelligence  and  his  recupera- 
tive spiritual  energy,  if  sin  had  not  thrown 
its  natural  consequences  as  a  heavy  coun- 
terweight into  the  scale,  and  brought  the 
glory  of  his  life  down  into  a  deeper  con- 
demnation. The  facts  are  known  and 
obvious,  that  disease  and  death  have 
assumed  in  man's  life  forms  of  suffering, 
terror,  and  loathsomeness,  unknown  in 
the  animal  creation,  which  has  neither 
risen  like  man  to  moral  freedom,  nor  ex- 
perienced the  retroactive  consequences  of 
a  life  false  to  nature  and  unworthy  of 
itself.  Mortality  becomes  most  corrupt- 
ible among  sinners.  Death  is  a  curse  of 
no  animal,  except  man.  In  this  view  of 
it,  likewise,  the  Bible  keeps  close  to  the 
truth  of  nature,  when  it  represents  death 
as  entering  man's  world  in  consequence 
of  his  sin.  Moreover,  in  this  respect  also, 
the  redemptive  forces  all  tend  to  restore 
death  to  its  natural  state  and  period,  as 
they  enter  and  work  through  purifying  re- 
actions in  the  life-blood  of  the  Christian 


158        THE   TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH 

family;  as  they  begin  to  accumulate  new 
store  of  health,  more  abounding  life,  and 
power  of  quick,  pulsing  joy,  in  the  veins 
and  the  blood,  in  the  brain  and  the  heart, 
of  the  children  of  light  and  the  resurrec- 
tion. While  sin  and  every  fall  of  man 
works  downward  as  a  covenant  and  curse 
of  death  from  one  generation  to.  another, 
so  also  spiritual  birth  into  newness  and 
light  of  life  works  upward  from  children 
to  children's  children  as  a  covenant  of 
mercy,  giving  back  to  nature  her  blessing 
when  the  Lord  pronounced  all  things 
good,  including  in  that  good  the  natural 
end  of  all  the  organic  life  in  the  world 
before  man  was  created. 

We  hold,  then,  the  Biblical  teaching  that 
death  follows  sin  in  a  course  of  retribution, 
to  be  true  to  its  acquired  moral  function, 
while  it  does  not  contravene,  but  rather 
attaches  itself  to  its  natural  origin  and 
utilities.  The  Biblical  view  is  thus  seen 
to  present  the  truth,  yet  not  the  whole 
truth,  concerning  the  law  of  death.  It 
presents  that  part  of  the  truth  which  is 
adapted  to  the  ends  of  a  moral  revelation ; 


THE   TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH         159 

but  not  all  of  the  truth  which  may  be 
learned,  and  which,  in  consonance  with 
the  objects  of  revelation,  it  were  better  to 
leave  man  to  learn  for  himself  in  the 
gradual  prosecution  of  his  studies  of  his 
nature  and  his  environment.  This  con- 
ception of  the  limitation  of  the  scope  of 
revelation  to  moral  ends,  and  the  conse- 
quent incompleteness  in  many  directions  of 
the  truth  which  it  discloses,  may  not  in- 
deed be  satisfactory  to  the  dogmatist  who 
would  find  in  his  Bible  a  complete  system 
of  the  divine  counsels ;  but  it  should  sat- 
isfy all  those  inquirers  and  pupils  of  the 
Spirit,  who  have  learned  in  the  humility 
of  their  faith  to  say  with  that  apostle  to 
whom  abundant  revelations  had  been 
given:  "For  we  know  in  part,  and  we 
prophesy  in  part ;  but  when  that  which  is 
perfect  is  come,  that  which  is  in  part  shall 
be  done  away."  * 

Before  beginning  a  new  chapter  with 

the  further  problem,  which  we  have  as  yet 

barely  touched,  concerning  the  utility  of 

the  suffering  to  which  we  are  exposed  by 

*  1  Cor.  xiii.  9-10. 


160         THE  TWO    VIEWS   OF   DEATH 

our  mortality,  we  may  take  a  rapid  look 
over  the  commanding  position  to  which 
our  discussion  thus  far  has  led  us.  We 
have  seen  that  death  first  entered  into  the 
course  of  nature  for  the  sake  of  life,  and 
to  help  life  up  and  on;  we  have  found 
reason  further  to  believe  that  life  has  at 
length  reached  in  our  spiritual  being  and 
energy  such  power  and  perfection  that 
after  its  breaking  loose  from  this  body  of 
the  flesh,  death  will  no  more  have  any 
utility  of  life  to  subserve,  and  hence,  with 
this  bodily  mortality,  will  pass  away,  — 
just  as  any  process,  function,  or  organ 
which  ceases  to  be  advantageous  to  life 
becomes  atrophied  and  eventually  disap- 
pears. Spiritual  life  at  last  shall  succeed 
in  rising  above  any  further  necessity  of 
mortality.  Or  to  put  the  same  principle 
theistically,  instead  of  biologically,  the 
living  God  will  no  longer  keep  death  in 
his  employ  in  the  home  of  the  children  of 
the  resurrection,  because  He  shall  have  no 
further  good  to  do  for  their  life  through 
the  service  of  death.  We  have  found 
that  this  view  is  in  moral  harmony  with 


THE  TWO   VIEWS   OF   DEATH         161 

the  service  of  death  which  is  emphasized 
in  the  Bible.  The  Scripture  assures  us 
that  in  the  end  mortality  shall  be  swal- 
lowed up  of  life.  Death  itself  shall  thus 
be  consumed  for  the  nourishment  of  life's 
immortality.  "Now  he  that  wrought  us 
for  this  very  thing  is  God,  who  gave  unto 
us  the  earnest  of  the  Spirit."  * 

Assuming,  then,  that  an  immortal  kind 
of  life  has  been  attained  in  our  spiritual 
nature,  and  its  future  possibilities,  with 
its  present  earnest  of  the  Spirit,  —  a  life 
so  aflame  with  love  and  winged  with  intel- 
ligence that  death  can  never  again  over- 
take and  quench  it,  —  we  find  still  before 
us  a  question  of  our  mortality,  into  which 
our  reasoning  thus  far  has  not  entered,  but 
with  which  we  have  the  deepest  concern. 
We  are  confronted  by  a  further  problem 
of  our  life's  inevitableness,  which  often 
seems  to  rise  before  men,  hard  and  for- 
bidding as  the  face  of  the  precipice,  upon 
which  no  sunlight  lies.  It  is  the  problem 
of  mortal  suffering,  and  especially  of  the 
frequent  overplus  of  suffering  beyond  any 
*  2  Cor.  v.  5. 


162         THE  TWO   VIEWS   OP   DEATH 

seeming  necessity,  if  nature's  end  be 
merely  to  bring  life  to  a  seasonable  close. 
We  shall  proceed  to  show  that  from  the 
nature-side  of  it  some  light  —  not,  in- 
deed, as  of  the  full  day,  but  some  gleam  as 
of  the  morning  —  may  be  thrown  upon  the 
dark  inevitableness  of  our  mortality. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  METHOD   OF  POSITIVE   BENEVOLENCE 
IN  THE   LAW   OF   DEATH 

IN  approaching  this  more  personal  part 
of  the  problem  of  mortality,  we  shall 
seek  first  to  apprehend  the  utilities  of 
physical  death  for  the  immortality  of  the 
human  race  as  a  whole ;  for  if  we  succeed 
in  grasping  the  nearer  end  of  any  great 
principle  of  life,  our  thought  may  swing 
itself  up  by  it  to  higher  and  more  fruitful 
conceptions  of  the  truth.*  Ignoring  for 
the  moment  our  personal  desires  of  life, 
and  man's  many  sorrows,  it  will  prove  of 
advantage  if  we  may  gain  some  clear, 
broad  view  of  the  utility  for  our  hu- 
manity, as  a  whole,  of  the  natural  law  of 
death.  If  we  succeed  occasionally  in  see- 
ing things  as  a  whole  (as  a  prophet  once 

*  The  author  has  indicated  the  usefulness  of  this 
method  of  faith  in  his  Personal  Creeds,  pp.  55  seq. 
163 


164      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

said),  it  will  become  less  difficult  for  us  to 
understand  and  to  accept  with  cheerful- 
ness our  personal  place  and  part  in  an 
order  of  providence  which  in  its  largeness 
and  completeness  is  seen  to  be  benign. 

One  of  these  first  more  evident  utilities 
of  death  for  human  life  as  a  whole  consists 
in  the  immense  enlargement,  through  its 
means,  of  this  earth  as  a  field  for  the  birth 
and  training  of  a  race  of  immortals. 

In  natural  history  one  of  the  vital  ques- 
tions concerns  the  field  for  life;  whether 
it  is  large  and  rich,  or  sheltered  enough 
to  secure  the  maintenance  and  spread  of 
vegetation,  and  to  afford  animal  life  ample 
opportunity  for  its  increase.  If  the  field 
is  crowded  or  barren,  or  if  it  lies  exposed 
to  destructive  elements,  then  among  the 
plants  and  animals  the  struggle  will  be- 
come severe;  and  the  possible  amount  of 
the  variety,  beauty,  and  joyousness  of  life 
in  that  too  limited  field  will  be  reduced 
to  narrow  limits.  Upon  the  same  field  of 
life  the  possibilities  of  existence  are  some- 
times restricted  to  a  few  kinds  of  flowers 
or  trees.  If  a  garden  is  left  to  run  wild, 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      165 

several  kinds  of  weeds  may  at  first  take 
possession  of  it;  but  these  will  be  sup- 
planted by  others,  and  in  time  not  only 
the  original  flowers,  but  the  earliest  weeds, 
will  have  alike  disappeared.*  Many  in- 
teresting illustrations  have  been  described 
by  Darwin,  Wallace,  and  other  observers, 
which  show  how  the  life  of  plants  and 
animals  is  modified,  limited,  and  deter- 
mined by  the  nature  and  the  changeable 
elements  of  the  field  for  the  battle  of  life. 
There  has  occurred  in  some  forests  a  silent 
conflict  of  the  trees  for  possession  of  the 
soil,  and  after  a  long-continued  struggle 
whole  regiments  of  a  single  kind  of  trees 
have  been  driven  from  their  native  soil, 
while  its  nutritive  wealth  is  taken  posses- 
sion of  by  other  species  of  trees.  There 
has  been,  for  instance,  a  succession 
among  the  forest  trees  of  Denmark, 
and  repeated  invasions  by  one  kind  of 
trees  against  others  which  held  possession 
of  the  land  before  it ;  in  a  field  of  life  in- 
capable of  maintaining  them  all  together, 
the  steps  in  the  survival  of  the  fittest  have 
*  Wallace,  Darwinism,  p.  15. 


166      METHOD  OP  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

been  marked  by  the  successive  prevalence 
of  the  aspen,  birch,  fir,  oak,  and  beech, 
the  last  conqueror  of  them  all.*  It  is 
thus  seen  to  be  nature's  method  to  limit 
some  field  of  life  in  such  ways  as  to 
compel  a  struggle  for  existence,  and  to 
secure  surviving  forms,  which  are  best 
trained  and  fitted  for  the  kind  of  life 
which  the  special  field  can  most  fruitfully 
cherish  and  preserve.  Nature  does  not 
furnish  one  and  the  same  field  for  all 
kinds  of  life,  and  in  the  same  day  of  her 
grace.  A  field  for  life  affording  sufficient 
shelter  and  sustenance,  and  yet  presenting 
just  difficulties  and  exposure  enough  to 
keep  life  vigilant,  active,  and  in  the 
main  successful,  seems  to  be  the  desirable 
field,  the  most  benevolent  field,  for  nat- 
ure's ends  of  life.  And  nature  could  not 
keep  any  field  clear  and  fertile  for  the  pro- 
duction of  the  greatest  possible  abundance 
of  the  life  best  fitted  to  it,  were  it  not  for 
the  swift  succession  of  her  organic  forms 
and  companies  across  it,  — for  the  passing 
of  the  flowers,  and  for  the  falling  one  after 
*  Wallace,  Darwinism,  p.  22. 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      167 

another  of  different  orders  of  her  trees ;  or, 
in  one  word,  were  it  not  for  the  frequent 
aid  of  death  in  the  service  of  her  more 
abounding  life. 

If,  then,  we  regard  ourselves  for  the 
moment  as  merely  animals,  no  better  than 
the  beasts  which  perish;  and  if  we  con- 
sider also  this  earth  as  a  limited  field  for 
human  life ;  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  how 
this  same  law  of  physical  succession,  by 
the  help  of  the  regular  interventions  of 
death,  may  be  nature's  best  possible 
method  of  securing  always  fresh,  young, 
thrifty  life,  and  in  the  greatest  possible 
exuberance  also  and  joy  of  it.  Moreover, 
the  hint  thus  derived  from  nature's 
method  in  the  bestowal  and  increase  of 
her  gifts  of  physical  life  may  carry  our 
thought  beyond  this  merely  material  wis- 
dom and  beneficence.  If  we  are  become 
aware  of  ourselves  as  immortals,  and  if 
we  reflect  how  narrow  this  little  earth  is 
as  a  field  for  the  birth  and  the  training  of 
a  race  of  immortals,  we  may  likewise  dis- 
cover a  similar  advantage  in  the  succession 
of  the  generations  of  men  on  earth;  and 


168      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

consequently  the  law  of  death,  by  means 
of  which  this  overflowing  abundance  of 
life  is  obtained  within  a  field  so  narrow, 
will  wear  a  new  aspect  of  benevolence. 
It  is  thus  seen  to  be  the  Creator's  chosen 
method  of  securing  from  a  limited  field 
the  greatest  possible  number  and  variety 
of  immortal  beings;  it  is  the  way  of  a 
divine  wisdom  in  reaping  the  largest  and 
richest  conceivable  harvest  of  an  immortal 
society  from  this  earthly  and  temporal  field 
of  life. 

This  earth  is  a  comparatively  small 
field  for  the  birth  and  nourishment  of 
a  great  company  of  spirits,  who  are  to 
have  a  universe  for  their  occupancy,  and 
eternity  for  their  lifetime.  If,  then,  no 
succession  of  generations  could  be  secured 
by  death;  if  all  who  are  born  here  were  to 
live  and  linger  on  until  the  last  day ;  this 
narrow,  earthly  field  of  immortal  life 
would  soon  become  choked,  exhausted, 
incapable  of  sustaining  further  multipli- 
cation of  the  human  race.  Without  the 
succession  of  generations,  each  having 
time  enough  here,  and  no  more,  for  its 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      169 

birth  and  training  for  immortality ;  with- 
out the  succession  of  generations  which 
death  in  the  service  of  life's  larger  fruit- 
fulness  maintains ;  the  human  race  would 
yield  on  the  whole  a  meagre  harvest  of 
life,  —  not  the  multitudinous  host,  the 
innumerable  array  of  those  whose  names 
are  written  in  heaven.  Let  us  suppose, 
therefore,  that  God's  good  design  is  to 
use  this  little  earth  in  such  way  as  to 
produce  for  eternity  the  richest  variety 
and  happiest  multitude  conceivable  of 
immortal  souls,  —  or,  in  one  word,  to 
render  earth's  contribution  of  life  to 
heaven  the  largest  and  best  possible.  In 
order  to  secure  that  end,  so  far  as  we  can 
infer  from  the  constitution  and  laws  of 
nature  below  us,  the  Creator  would  have 
to  introduce  death,  or  the  succession  of 
generations  through  the  intervention  of 
death,  in  this  earthly  field  of  life.  For 
there  are  only  two  ways  thinkable  by  us 
for  securing  finally  the  fullest  harvest  of 
immortal  life.  For  the  graduation,  so  to 
speak,  of  many  undying  souls  into  real 
life,  either  there  must  be  a  large  number 


170      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

of  schoolrooms,  or  else  there  must  be  a 
constant  succession  of  scholars  through 
the  same  limited  schoolrooms,  and  that 
succession  must  be  as  rapid  as  the  pur- 
poses of  a  good  Christian  education  for 
eternal  life  will  allow.  Or  possibly, 
since  creation  is  vast  and  God  is  infinite, 
the  two  methods  might  be  combined,  and 
there  may  be  many  schoolrooms  for  eter- 
nity in  his  universe  as  well  as  a  ceaseless 
succession  of  scholars  through  them.  It 
is  conceivable  that  Jesus'  word  may  have 
cosmic  applications,  and  that  at  last  all 
the  systems  of  the  constellations  may 
send  up  their  spiritual  hosts  to  confirm 
the  word  of  this  earth's  Lord,  that  there 
shall  be  many  folds,  but  one  flock.  But 
however  God  may  be  working  for  eternity 
in  other  temporal  worlds  besides  our  own, 
—  of  that  we  have  no  knowledge,10 — it  is 
the  fact  that  the  method  which  He  actu- 
ally has  adopted  of  gathering  the  largest 
number  of  sheaves  possible  from  this 
limited  earthly  field,  is  the  method  of 
brief  seasons,  and  a  swift  succession  of 
souls  springing  up  to  everlasting  life; 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      171 

and  for  this  desirable  end  the  reaper, 
death,  must  be  kept  ever  busy  in  God's 
service. 

Besides  this,  another  consideration, 
which  has  been  mentioned  in  our  review 
of  the  natural  uses  of  death,  comes  to 
mind  to  help  out  our  thought  just  at  this 
point.  The  lifetime  of  each  living  organ- 
ism, whether  animal  or  plant,  as  we  have 
seen,  seems  to  have  been  determined  with 
reference  to  the  preservation  of  its  spe- 
cies, each  organism  existing  as  long  as 
seems  most  advantageous  for  its  species. 
So  likewise  the  age  of  a  man  on  this  earth 
may  be  allotted  to  him  under  a  similar 
law  of  utility,  and  the  average  duration 
of  human  life  be  determined  by  wise  adap- 
tation to  this  end  of  producing  on  the 
whole  the  largest  possible  evolution  of 
spiritual  immortality  from  this  mortality. 
Our  personal  affections  and  desires  might 
compass  at  the  widest  not  more  than 
five  generations.  Our  grandparents  and 
parents,  our  brothers  and  sisters,  our  chil- 
dren and  children's  children,  — these  are 
the  generations  which  our  personal  affec- 


172      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

tions  and  care  might  possibly  embrace; 
and  a  warm  heart  indeed  would  be  needed 
to  light  up  with  its  one  love  so  many 
generations  even  as  these.  Rarely  are  so 
many  as  five  permitted  by  nature  to  co- 
exist on  this  narrow  field  of  life.  It  is 
not  a  field  large  enough  to  permit  of  the 
profitable  coexistence,  the  advantageous 
survival,  of  all  its  generations  of  men 
within  the  narrow  limits  of  its  opportu- 
nity for  the  birth,  growth,  and  training  of 
a  race  of  immortals.  We  can  conceive 
of  many  disadvantages,  and  of  some  checks 
and  restraints  put  upon  human  progress, 
should  so  many  as  only  five  generations 
be  permitted  ordinarily  to  dwell  under  the 
same  narrow  roof  together.  It  is  better 
not  so.  Frequent  interruptions  of  death 
render  human  progress  possible  from  gen- 
eration to  generation;  death  helps  man 
make  history.  We  find  well  secured  in 
the  successful  processes  of  evolution  a 
sufficient  period  of  time  for  the  continu- 
ance here  of  each  human  generation,  but 
no  longer  lifetime  than  is  needed;  and 
this  measured  period  seems  to  be  in  many 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      173 

conceivable  ways  best  adapted  for  the 
moral  and  spiritual  ends  of  the  life  of 
humanity  considered  as  a  whole.  It  is 
well  fitted  to  maintain  continuous  pro- 
gress in  the  intellectual  and  moral  life  of 
man,  to  secure  social  stability  with  the  pos- 
sibility of  social  improvement.  It  affords 
also  to  the  individual  life  time  enough 
for  spiritual  gestation  in  the  womb  of  the 
natural,  in  order  that  at  death  it  may  come 
full-grown  to  the  birth  into  the  freedom 
of  the  spiritual ;  while  at  the  same  time  it 
renders  this  little  passing  earth  among  the 
stars  most  fertile  in  its  total  contribution  to 
the  final  society  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
The  disadvantages  are  obvious  which 
would  result  from  an  entire  absence  of 
death,  involving  an  uninterrupted  con- 
tinuance of  old  age,  even  if  we  could  sup- 
pose the  overcrowding  of  the  earth  by  all 
her  generations  to  be  possible.  Were 
there  no  natural  term  of  human  life,  the 
consequent  struggle  of  an  innumerable 
multitude  of  men  to  keep  foothold  on  the 
earth  might  of  itself  bring  in  death  as  an 
artificial  necessity,  —  an  imposed  and  un- 


174      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

avoidable  self-destruction  of  humanity. 
The  extension  to  great  length  of  the  dura- 
tion of  human  life,  if  otherwise  permis- 
sible, would  probably  involve  more  social 
loss  than  gain.  No  village  could  bring 
its  fresh  life  to  best  endeavor  and  fullest 
fruition,  if  it  were  overshadowed  and 
dominated  by  too  many  hoary  Methuse- 
lahs.  Habit  might  become  too  strong,  or 
the  social  crust  too  thick,  for  life's  fresh 
fruitfulness.  An  ingenious  writer  has 
remarked  that  one  of  the  first  necessities 
of  civilization  is  to  form  a  "  cake  of  cus- 
tom " ;  *  and  the  next  necessity  is  to  break 
it  up.  One  of  the  laws  of  ascending  life, 
which  biologists  regard  as  among  the 
necessary  vital  conditions,  is  the  law  of 
plasticity.  The  matter  of  life  must  be 
plastic,  or  responsive  to  changed  external 
conditions ;  both  stability  of  the  germinal 
matter  and  some  plasticity  are  indispen- 
sable to  life's  advance  and  enrichment. 
But  too  long  a  period  for  a  human  genera- 
tion might  prevent  this  primal  condition 
of  progress. 

*  Bagehot,  Physics  and  Politics,  p.  27. 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      175 

Mr.  Martineau,  with  his  facile  pen,  has 
depicted  at  length  many  of  the  disadvan- 
tages which  may  be  conceived  to  attend  a 
too  extensive  prolongation  of  the  term  of 
human  life.  He  has  vividly  portrayed 
the  evils  which  might  result  from  the 
overgrowth  of  authority,  and  the  blight 
which  might  fall  upon  progress  from  the 
too  protracted  shadow  of  the  continued  life 
even  of  the  princes  of  science  and  the 
benefactors  of  mankind,  as  well  as  the 
shackles  which  would  become  fixed,  and 
the  despotisms  which  would  be  rendered 
invincible,  by  the  longevity  for  half  a 
millennium  of  a  Domitian,  a  Philip  II., 
or  a  Napoleon.  "Precisely,"  he  remarks, 
"  at  the  juncture  of  two  generations  it  is, 
that  errors  and  prejudices  drop  out,  and 
the  dead  resistance  of  habit  to  new  enter- 
prises of  thought  and  affection  falls  away. 
.  .  .  Death  then  must  not  too  long  de- 
lay his  discharge  of  these  Emeriti,  if  the 
future  is  not  to  be  clogged,  instead  of 
cleared,  by  the  conquests  of  the  Past." 
He  adds  also  a  suggestion,  which  falls 
into  the  line  of  our  previous  discussion, 


176      METHOD  OP  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

that  for  those  who  in  the  maturity  of  their 
powers  are  discharged  from  this  life,  the 
transition  is  a  deliverance  from  the  force 
of  habits  which  have  become  fixed  in  the 
physical  organism,  the  corporeal  mechan- 
ism, to  the  detriment  of  the  mind. 
"Death, "he  concludes,  "may  be  but  the 
provision  for  taking  us  abroad,  ere  we 
have  stopped  too  long  at  home,  and  un- 
sealing the  closed  inlets  of  wisdom,  affec- 
tion, and  reverence,  by  the  surprise  of 
new  light.  In  this  aspect  Death,  instead 
of  frustrating  the  ends  of  life,  becomes 
the  great  arrester  of  ills,  —  the  liberator 
of  souls,  for  both  the  visible  and  the  in- 
visible worlds."  * 

We  have  already  observed  that  under 
the  principle  of  natural  selection  the  dura- 
tion of  life  for  each  species  seems  to  have 
been  shortened  or  lengthened,  according 
to  the  needs  of  each  for  the  most  effective 
preservation  of  its  life  in  its  environment. 
If  we  should  accept  the  earlier  traditions 
of  a  prolonged  lifetime  for  primeval  man, 
we  might  infer  that  under  the  constant 
*  Study  of  Religion,  I.,  pp.  372-374. 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      177 

action  of  the  same  natural  principle  of 
selection,  the  duration  of  human  life  has 
been  shortened ;  that  our  lifetime  of  three- 
score years  and  ten  has  at  length  been 
secured  as  an  adaptation  on  the  whole 
best  fitted  to  the  ends  of  human  life. 
We  go  a  step  farther,  yet  it  is  a  step 
which  immediately  follows,  when  we 
reason  that  this  natural  law  may  furnish 
a  point  of  advantage  for  a  higher  princi- 
ple of  spiritual  selection ;  and  that  conse- 
quently the  earthly  life  of  man  has  been 
divided  up  into  successive  generations, 
and  death  permitted  to  prevail  as  the 
necessary  means  of  making  this  division, 
which  not  only  secures  the  largest  spir- 
itual harvest,  but  which  also  affords  to 
the  individual  the  terms  most  suited  to 
his  attainment  of  the  spiritual  ends  of 
human  life.11 

Hence  we  conclude  that  by  means  of  the 
natural  utilities  of  death  life's  spiritual 
field  has  been  enlarged  and  enriched ;  and 
that  the  result  of  this  whole  order  of  life 
and  death  shall  be  to  make  available  to 
the  largest  number  this  earthly  school  of 


178      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

training  for  immortality,  and  in  the  end 
to  introduce  all  the  generations  of  men  to 
one  another  in  the  most  varied,  most  en- 
joyable, and  glorified  society  which  could 
by  any  means  conceivable  have  been 
brought  to  the  birth,  developed,  and  fitted 
for  exalted  companionship  on  a  field  of 
life  so  limited  as  is  this  little  earth. 
This  also  may  prove  to  be  the  method 
which  an  unerring  Wisdom  has  devised 
to  render  heaven  itself  an  ever  new  and 
interesting  companionship,  by  gathering 
together  generations  so  differently  born, 
and  educated  in  times  and  seasons  so  vari- 
ous, that  they  shall  have  ever  fresh  attrac- 
tion and  charm  for  one  another  in  the  one 
final  society ;  —  by  this  vast  variety  of  its 
preparation,  the  everlasting  life  itself  may 
be  prevented  from  lapsing  into  perpetual 
sameness  and  monotony. 

It  now  remains  for  us,  in  the  light  of 
these  observations  and  reflections,  to  con- 
sider further  the  personal  sufferings  which 
our  individual  subjection  to  the  law  of 
death  may  render  inevitable.  Here,  like- 
wise, in  our  thought  of  the  sufferings  of 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      179 

our  mortality,  we  are  to  keep  firm  grasp 
upon  the  strong  vital  principle  that  death 
is  sent,  and  works  always  in  the  end,  for 
the  advantage  of  life.  Hence  we  must 
believe  that  the  sufferings  attendant  upon 
the  entrance  of  death  into  the  circle  of  our 
friendships,  as  well  as  the  pains  of  death 
through  which  at  any  hour  one  may  be 
called  personally  to  pass,  are  sent,  not  to 
hurt  us,  or  to  make  our  human  affections 
our  most  cruel  tormentors,  but  for  some 
further  good  purpose  and  ulterior  benefit 
of  life.  We  begin  with  the  discovery  of 
a  law  of  natural  utility  in  death.  We 
rise  to  the  conception  of  a  higher  law  of 
spiritual  selection  and  use,  under  which, 
through  the  suffering  of  death,  life  may 
be  adapted  to  higher  ends,  and  carried  on 
to  nobler  uses.  We  observe,  moreover, 
that  an  effect  or  working  of  nature  which 
may  seem  to  be  disadvantageous  when 
viewed  in  relation  to  one  order  of  life, 
may  be  seen  to  be  advantageous  when 
judged  in  its  relation  to  some  higher 
order  of  life.  "Degeneracy  of  parts,  or 
of  types  of  life,  has  been  necessary  to  the 


180      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

advance  of  other  and  better  organs  or 
forms. "  *  The  end  of  one  kind  of  existence 
may  be  the  birth  of  a  new  species.  A 
method  which  works  apparently  waste- 
fully  in  one  sphere  may  be  the  beneficence 
of  nature  in  which  a  superior  kind  of  life 
is  trained  and  perfected.  Suffering  in 
the  lower  kind  may  become  gain  in  the 
higher;  the  death  of  the  one  may  be  the 
victory  of  the  other.  Thus  the  natural 
law  of  struggle  for  existence  becomes  a 
school  of  altruism  in  man's  development. 
We  cannot  affirm  therefore  of  any  suffer- 
ings which  men  may  have  to  endure  in 
this  lower  existence,  that  they  are  need- 
less or  wasteful;  we  should  know  first 
their  values  in  terms  of  the  farther  and 
future  life. 

When  the  sufferings  and  pains  to  which 
man  is  subjected  through  the  reign  of 
death  are  thus  brought  under  this  concep- 
tion of  its  utility,  —  physical,  moral,  and 
spiritual,  —  the  present  mystery  of  suffer- 
ing is  put  in  the  way  at  least  of  its  ex- 

*  Cope,  Primary  Factors  of  Organic  Evolution, 
p.  75. 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      181 

planation,  although  now  we  are  far  from 
able  to  follow  this  way  of  its  justification 
through  all  darkness  into  the  full  and 
perfect  light.  But  when  once  fairly  ap- 
prehended from  this  principle  of  use  for 
life,  although  now  seen  but  darkly,  pain 
and  sorrow  are  lifted  up,  and  put  in  the 
course  of  a  moral  justification:  as  en- 
trusted with  a  vital  mission,  they  await 
the  final  explanation  in  which  all  God's 
ways  shall  be  seen  to  be  the  paths  of  life. 
For  what  is  the  real  test  of  benevolence  ? 
What  is  the  final,  the  supreme  test  of 
beneficence?  Is  it  not  always  the  vital 
test,  —  the  decisive  test  of  service  for  life  ? 
This  is  the  one  constant  test,  which  we 
have  found  applied  in  nature  throughout 
her  whole  course  from  the  lowest  micro- 
scopic cell  up  to  the  living  soul  of  man. 
The  critical  test  has  always  been  the  vital 
test;  it  is  not  the  question  which  we  are 
daily  asking,  How  shall  any  experience 
affect  our  feeling?  It  is  the  question 
which  God  from  eternity  to  eternity  pro- 
poses, What  shall  it  contribute  to  the  life  ? 
"Is  not  the  life  more  than  the  food,  and 


182      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

the  body  than  the  raiment?  "  The  diviner 
interest  in  us  does  not  concern  primarily 
the  effect  which  the  coming  of  any  ser- 
vant of  God,  whether  with  message  of  life 
or  death,  may  have  upon  our  sensibility; 
it  is  centred  rather  in  the  gift  which  may 
be  brought  to  our  life.  The  holier,  God- 
like interest  in  us  would  seem  to  be  this : 
What  shall  His  working  achieve  for  our 
power  of  living  ?  What  shall  it  accomplish 
for  the  enlargement  of  our  capacity  of 
mind  and  heart?  What  shall  it  finally 
secure  for  our  abundant  entrance  into  the 
full  life  of  love,  and  its  blessedness  over 
all  forever?  God's  eye  is  fixed  upon 
character;  He  regards  its  capacity  for 
heaven.  This,  and  this  only,  is  vital  test 
high  and  holy  enough  by  which  to  judge 
God's  way  with  a  soul,  and  by  which  at 
last  his  way  shall  be  made  plain  from 
lowest  depths  of  his  beginnings  to  highest 
heights  of  his  redemptions. 

Even  in  this  present  time,  dark  and 
lonely  as  its  shadows  often  are,  we  may 
follow  much  human  suffering,  and  our 
own  grief,  along  this  sure  path,  trodden 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      183 

before  us  by  the  servants  of  divine  Wis- 
dom, which  even  in  its  descent  leads  along 
the  firm  purpose  of  the  Love  that  is  reign- 
ing and  waiting  upon  the  celestial  height. 
Already  in  many  instances  we  may  see 
signs  and  discern  partial  fulfilments  of  a 
large  and  beneficent  utility  in  the  minis- 
try of  sorrow;  the  vital  test  begins,  at 
least,  to  render  the  way  of  suffering  intel- 
ligible as  a  way  of  God's  commandment 
in  which  hearts  are  enlarged.  When  seen 
in  the  chastening  light  of  this  diviner 
beneficence,  the  family-life  will  often  take 
on  new  worth  and  fairer  color  and  beauty. 
For  the  beginning,  the  growth,  the  se- 
curity, and  the  perfecting  of  the  family- 
life,  which  He  has  created,  God  has  sent 
his  two  ministering  spirits  of  life  and 
death,  each  appointed  to  serve  love;  the 
one  to  call  forth  the  family-life,  and  to 
give  it  strength,  identity,  and  firmness; 
while,  in  due  time,  the  other  silently  fol- 
lows to  sanctify  it,  to  impart  to  it  a  spir- 
itual purity,  and  to  render  it  altogether 
worthy  and  sure  of  its  immortality.  Both 
these  angels,  by  God's  appointment  from 


184      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

the  beginning,  serve  love;  and  together, 
working  in  one  ministry  from  God,  and 
towards  one  end  of  love,  they  shall  bring 
the  family-life  from  this  earthliness  to  its 
celestial  completion. 

Our  thought  at  this  point  of  spiritual 
outlook  may  gain  distinctness  by  the  aid 
of  an  analogy  from  the  simplest  process 
of  natural  life.  It  is  an  analogy  to  be 
drawn  indeed  from  an  operation  of  nature 
which  lies  far  distant  from  our  personal 
life  and  affections ;  far  distant,  that  is,  in 
time  and  in  the  successions  of  the  crea- 
tion's order,  but  not  distant  in  the  principle 
of  intelligence  which  it  illustrates ;  for  all 
God's  ways,  whether  far  or  near,  are  one 
way  of  intelligence,  and  lead  towards  the 
same  ends  of  reason  from  all  quarters  of 
the  created  universe.  Nature  is  one  do- 
main of  sufficient  reason.  We  may  bring, 
therefore,  this  parable  from  the  lowest 
for  the  highest  life.  Near  the  beginnings 
of  organic  existence,  as  we  have  found, 
the  service  of  death  helped  life  press  on 
from  unicellular  to  multicellular  organ- 
isms. Life,  by  the  timely  aid  of  death, 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      185 

passed  beyond  the  stage  of  isolation  in 
the  single  cell;  and  for  its  further  pres- 
ervation and  advantage  proceeded  to  form 
clusters  and  colonies  of  cells,  by  their  as- 
sociation and  mutual  serviceableness  grow- 
ing into  one  organism  of  many  parts,  and 
becoming  thus  more  sentient,  and  more 
largely  responsive.  The  lower  working 
adumbrates  the  higher  felicity.  As  in 
the  beginning,  so  much  more  in  the  end- 
ing, life,  having  been  helped  to  realize 
its  spiritual  ends  by  death,  shall  become 
complete  and  rich  in  definite  groupings 
of  souls,  in  choice  societies  of  spirits  who 
shall  be  mutually  serviceable  as  members 
of  one  body,  having  been  "made  perfect 
in  one,"  —  as  the  last  and  heavenly  aspi- 
ration of  life  has  been  uttered  for  us  all 
in  the  Lord's  prayer  for  the  life  eternal. 

We  can  the  more  readily  believe  in 
the  final  perfection  of  the  family-life, 
which  lies  beyond  the  veil,  because  we 
can  sometimes  see,  from  those  parts  of 
its  one  circle  of  love  which  lie  still 
within  our  knowledge,  how  death,  which 
seems  to  break  it,  may  work  beneficently 


180      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

for  its  hallowing  and  perfecting.  As 
no  other  servant  of  the  living  One, 
ofttimes  death  will  redeem  from  selfish- 
ness, consecrate,  and  glorify  the  family- 
life  and  the  family-love.  Death  at  times 
seems  to  raise  it  to  holier  and  even  more 
blessed  consciousness  of  itself.  It  will 
bring  back  one  or  another  of  the  house- 
hold from  lives  too  separate  and  too  self- 
seeking.  In  some  instances  death  has 
seemed  to  call  forth  for  the  first  time  the 
full  power  of  love,  revealing  it  to  itself, 
and  giving  it  deeper  knowledge  of  its  own 
abiding  worth;  the  true,  full  family-love 
in  such  instances  must  needs  come  to  its 
immortal  birth  in  pain  and  travail  of  soul. 
There  are  families  united  as  never  before, 
and  united  forever,  around  some  dear, 
sacred  grave.  And  always,  among  pure 
and  trusting  souls,  the  presence  of  sor- 
row may  soften  and  render  more  tender, 
while  it  deepens  and  makes  more  sure  of 
itself,  the  heart  of  an  immortal  love.  So 
the  living  One  by  a  twofold  working  of 
his  grace  shall  bring  to  perfection  the 
family-life ;  He  sends  his  angel  of  life  to 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      187 

create  it,  and  to  fashion  its  earthly  form, 
fair  and  full  of  promise;  and  He  sends 
erelong  his  other  ministering  angel  to 
give  the  family-life  part  and  possession 
in  both  worlds,  the  seen  and  the  unseen; 
so  that  even  here  and  now  it  may  enter 
by  faith,  as  well  as  by  sight,  into  that 
knowledge  of  love  which  is  sure,  sacred, 
eternal,  as  is  the  blessedness  of  God. 

In  this  connection  there  should  not  be 
forgotten  a  use  of  human  suffering,  which 
is  very  dimly  foreshadowed  in  the  lower 
processes  of  nature,  but  which  can  only 
come  to  its  appointed  service  in  the  moral 
life;  namely,  the  vicarious  use  of  suf- 
fering, and  of  suffering  even  unto  death. 
Hints,  indeed,  and  dim  adumbrations  of 
a  vicarious  principle  seem  to  be  indicated 
in  the  method  which  nature  among  lowly 
organisms  sometimes  employs  of  the  sub- 
stitution of  one  part  for  another  in  the 
discharge  of  the  functions  of  life;  or  of 
the  dissolution  even  of  some  cells  in  order 
that  an  entire  organ  may  be  preserved. 
We  have  already  noticed  (p.  39)  that 
there  are  specific  functions  in  the  higher 


188      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

organisms  which  involve  the  death  of  the 
cells  which  discharge  those  functions,  as, 
for  instance,  in  the  secretory  glands ;  or  as 
the  exercise  of  their  function  by  the  blood- 
corpuscles  involves  their  dissolution.* 

This  sacrificial  method  of  life  is  fore- 
shadowed likewise  from  the  earliest  be- 
ginnings in  the  giving  up  of  maternal  life 
among  the  lowliest  multicellular  organ- 
isms for  the  sake  of  reproduction.  The 
female  of  some  Mesozoa,  for  instance 
(which  seem  to  be  an  intermediate  class 
between  the  single-celled  organisms,  and 
those  having  a  body  of  several  cells), 
forms  within  herself  numerous  germ- 
cells,  and  then,  to  set  them  free,  "ter- 
minates her  own  life  by  bursting."  Nat- 
ure thus  sacrifices  the  one  form  for  the 
many.  Another  familiar  instance  is  the 
love-dance,  as  it  is  poetically  described, 
of  the  May-flies,  and  the  death  of  both 
parents  soon  after  the  fertilized  eggs 
have  been  deposited  on  the  surface  of 
the  water,  in  order  that  new,  teeming 
insect  life  may  again  take  wing  in  the 

*  Weismann,  Essays  upon  Heredity,  I.,  p.  62. 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      189 

sunshine.  Nature,  indeed,  among  her 
higher  animal  forms  has  greatly  reduced 
the  costliness  of  birth,  and  changed  her 
earlier  sacrificial  method  of  reproduction 
into  the  better  way  of  keeping  the  mother 
among  the  living  for  the  sake  of  the 
child;  —  the  tragic  sacrifice  of  a  life  for 
a  life  becomes  the  exception,  and  is  not 
the  rule,  since  nature  brought  to  human 
perfectness  her  "evolution  of  a  mother." 

Such  acts,  however,  and  all  similar  in- 
stances of  substitution  or  sacrifice  of  a  part 
for  the  whole  in  the  discharge  of  the  func- 
tions of  animal  life,  serve  at  best  as  the 
rudimentary  suggestions  of  a  high  and 
fruitful  principle  of  vicariousness,  which 
can  find  scope  and  power  for  its  full  benefi- 
cence only  in  the  sphere  of  freedom,  and 
among  the  possibilities  of  love  like  that 
which  the  Father  hath  for  the  Son.  Hence 
death  may  be  utilized  as  the  means  already 
furnished  and  finished  by  nature  for  the 
manifestation  of  this  higher  spiritual  prin- 
ciple of  vicariousness.  Through  the  suf- 
ferings which  death,  having  entered  into 
nature,  renders  possible,  love  within  the 


190      METHOD  OP  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

family  circle,  as  well  as  love  in  its  divine 
comprehension  of  the  world,  may  find  the 
opportunity  for  its  cross,  and  through  the 
suffering  of  the  one  the  many  may  be  made 
perfect.  With  a  profounder  insight  into 
the  law  of  vicariousness  (which  is  one  of 
the  great  laws  of  life)  than  in  our  careless 
reading  we  may  have  observed,  an  apostle 
once  wrote  of  his  rejoicing  in  his  suffer- 
ings for  the  sake  of  others;  and  without 
hesitancy  he  put  his  afflictions  for  them 
into  the  same  order  as  the  sacrifice  of  the 
death  of  the  Christ,  when  he  wrote :  "  Now 
I  rejoice  in  my  sufferings  for  your  sake, 
and  fill  up  on  my  part  that  which  is  lack- 
ing of  the  afflictions  of  Christ  in  my  flesh 
for  his  body's  sake,  which  is  the  church."  * 
The  overplus  of  suffering,  the  kind  and 
amount  of  sufferings  which  seem  to  be 
beyond  any  natural  necessity  for  the  mere 
bringing  a  life  to  an  end,  and  also  to  be 
out  of  all  apparent  relations  to  the  desert 
of  the  person  who  endures  it,  may  fall 
more  often  and  more  largely  than  we  may 
be  aware  under  this  same  principle  of 
*  Col.  i.  24. 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      191 

vicariousness,  to  which  the  Christ  freely 
subjected  himself  even  unto  the  death  of 
the  cross.  The  effect  of  such  suffering, 
which  remains  in  the  softening  of  sympa- 
thy and  the  enlargement  of  heart  of  some 
witnesses  of  it,  may  have  vicarious  worth 
long  after  the  man  or  the  woman,  who 
was  anointed  to  be  an  example  of  such 
patience,  may  have  outlived  and  forgotten 
all  pain  in  the  happy  freedom  of  the  other 
world.  In  this  vicariousness  for  the  home, 
for  a  whole  circle  of  friends,  for  country, 
or  for  mankind,  the  sufferings  of  the  right- 
eous, or  the  flames  of  the  martyrs,  can 
never  be  regarded  as  needless.  The  ex- 
cess of  suffering  which  sometimes  we 
must  witness  by  the  bedsides  of  persons 
whose  goodness  we  think  should  have 
rendered  them  most  favored  of  heaven  in 
their  exit  from  this  world,  may  have  in  it 
more  Christ-like  resemblance  and  virtue 
than  we  have  discerned,  serving,  as  it 
does,  in  the  utilities  of  God's  grace  a 
double  purpose,  not  only  making  perfect 
the  son  of  God's  love,  who  must  endure 
it,  but  also  having  vicarious  grace  for 


192      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

our  hearts,  who  behold  it,  —  even  as  the 
Master's  cross  was  for  the  disciples'  sake. 
We  have  come  from  some  sick-beds  as 
from  a  sacrament,  having  received  earnest 
of  the  Spirit. 

The  conclusion  of  this  study  of  the 
natural  utility  of  death  in  the  light  of 
science  will  have  been  reached,  if  we  gain 
thereby  some  firmer,  surer  standing  on 
the  truth  which  the  poet  has  won  sim- 
ply by  following  the  sure  instinct  of  his 
interpretative  spirit :  — 

"  Who  hath  not  learned,  in  hours  of  faith, 
The  truth  to  flesh  and  sense  unknown, 
That  Life  is  ever  lord  of  Death, 
And  Love  can  never  lose  its  own! " 

We  may  now  think  that  this  truth  of 
the  poet's  vision  is  not  utterly  unknown 
to  flesh  and  sense,  for  our  biology  itself, 
unveiling  the  secret  of  the  living  cell, 
and  revealing  the  continuous  power  and 
wondrous  ascent  of  evolution  from  the 
least  particles  of  organic  structure  up  to 
the  heart  of  man,  is  teaching  us  that  "  Life 
is  ever  lord  of  Death";  and  if  this  first 
line  of  nature's  revelation  proves  true, 


METHOD  OP  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      198 

the  last  line  of  the  poet's  spiritual  creed 
would  seem  to  follow  in  natural  rhythm 
with  it,  that  "Love  can  never  lose  its 
own."  Not  only,  then,  through  a  poet's 
listening  to  the  heart  of  life,  but  by  pur- 
suing with  scientific  reasoning  the  ways 
of  nature  up  to  the  living  soul,  we  may 
gain  assurance  that  by  the  whole  appoint- 
ment of  suffering  and  death  the  God  of 
love  means  not  to  break  human  hearts, 
but  to  make  them ;  not  to  destroy,  but  to 
fulfil  nature's  one  law  of  life. 

This  profounder  view  of  suffering  as 
the  means  of  making  hearts  with  diviner 
capacity  for  love  and  heaven  goes  far 
deeper  than  the  received  view  of  future 
compensation  for  present  pains.  It  will 
bring  a  stronger  comfort  than  the  common 
idea  that  for  every  cross  there  shall  be  a 
crown  hereafter.  The  truth  is  that  our 
crosses  become  our  crowns.  It  was  not 
a  cross  of  wood  exchanged  for  a  crown  of 
gold.  It  was  the  one  divine  life  hasten- 
ing on  through  the  crucifixion  to  its  glory 
with  the  Father.  It  is  not  for  any  dis- 


194      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

ciple  a  trial  cast  aside,  and  a  joy  received 
instead ;  it  is  a  sorrow  transmuted  into  a 
joy,  a  trial  changed  into  a  glory.  With- 
out the  one,  the  other  could  not  be,  — at 
least  not  so  supremely  and  so  perfectly. 

The  insufficiency  of  the  merely  compen- 
satory view  of  the  future  life  either  as  a 
reward  of  our  present  suffering,  or  as  a 
justification  of  God's  ways  in  our  tem- 
poral discipline  and  death,  will  appear  the 
moment  we  turn  upon  it  the  light  which 
may  have  been  gained  from  all  our  pre- 
vious discussion.  For  from  the  reason- 
ing which  discovers  a  divine  principle  of 
utility  in  the  service  of  death  to  life, 
this  word  compensation  will  seem  too 
low  and  narrow  fittingly  to  represent  the 
aim  and  march  of  the  divine  benevolence 
through  the  whole  process  and  period  of 
life,  and  death,  and  life  again  still  fuller 
and  richer.  Compensation  is  a  word  too 
quantitative  and  mechanical  worthily  to 
represent  the  indwelling  and  formative 
Spirit  of  life  throughout  its  whole  process 
of  evolution.  It  is  an  unworthy  concep- 
tion of  our  loss  or  gain;  as  though  the 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      195 

Almighty  God  could  employ  the  resources 
of  measureless  love  in  meting  out  compen- 
sations, measure  for  measure,  for  our 
human  losses,  with  one  hand  filling  life's 
cup,  while  emptying  it  with  the  other; 
and  by  and  bye,  filling  it  again,  or  pos- 
sibly now  in  this  world  half-filling  it  again 
with  joy.  But  that  were  not  Godlike;  it 
is  not  like  the  vital  method  of  God  in 
nature.  For  the  divine  process  of  life 
and  death  throughout  nature  goes  straight 
on,  and  always  towards  more  and  richer 
life,  even  though  it  must  go  straight 
through  death  in  order  to  reach  larger  life 
and  happier.  The  divine  method  of  life 
has  in  it  the  patience  of  the  ages,  and  the 
longsuffering  of  grace;  but  it  goes 
straight  on,  and  cannot  miss  its  deter- 
mined end.  Apparent  retrogressions  in 
nature  are  steps  in  a  further  progression ; 
the  descent  is  but  the  way  to  the  ascent 
beyond;  the  disintegration  is  for  the  bet- 
ter integration ;  the  inorganic  breaks  down 
that  the  organic  may  be  built  up;  as  the 
organic  likewise  is  dissolved  that  new 
births  may  appear.  The  conception  of 


196      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

evolution  as  one  vast  cyclic  movement, 
which  in  some  far-distant  age  shall  return 
into  itself,  beginning  in  chaos  and  des- 
tined to  end  in  universal  dissolution,  is 
not  true  to  the  facts  which  lie  within  the 
compass  of  our  knowledge ;  the  arc  of  its 
course,  which  we  can  measure,  is  but  as  a 
span,  yet  it  is  enough  to  determine  the  line 
of  its  direction,  and  to  indicate  that  God's 
curve  of  creation  has  measureless  scope, 
and  is  not  a  circle  returning  into  itself. 
One  order  of  nature  succeeds  another  in 
definite  ascent,  and  the  promise  of  the 
natural  opens  into  the  spiritual.  There 
is  also  in  present  spiritual  beginnings  a 
prophecy  of  better  things  which  God  hath 
prepared  beyond  the  power  of  the  heart  to 
conceive;  the  spiritual  shows  no  sign, 
it  gives  no  evidence,  of  its  falling  back 
again  into  the  natural,  from  which  it  has 
already  risen  and  shall  spring  up  clear 
and  free.  The  doves  let  out  through  the 
soul's  windows  do  not  come  back  to  the 
ark. 

We  greatly  err  if  we  mistake  momen- 
tary  retrogressions    for   a   faltering   pur- 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      197 

pose  of  life  in  the  heart  of  nature.  The 
apparent  cyclic  movements  of  life  are  but 
the  rising  and  the  reflux  of  the  wave ;  the 
stream  flows  on.  The  divine  law  of  life 
is  not  mere  process  of  emptying  and  fill- 
ing, of  a  perpetual  ebb  and  flow;  it  is  a 
positive  law  of  God's  fulfilling  himself  in 
many  ways.  Evolution  is  ascent  and  ever 
more  expectant  march  of  life  through  this 
mortality  toward  immortality.  From  the 
first  to  the  last  known  development  of  life, 
the  process  has  been  a  procedure  of  posi- 
tive and  progressive  determination;  it  is 
not  a  series  of  measured  compensations,  a 
mere  balancing  of  loss  and  gain ;  it  is  de- 
velopment along  definite  and  predeter- 
mined lines.*  There  has  been  a  steady 
and  sure  advance  of  the  immanent  reason 
of  nature  through  her  successive  forms: 
do  we  not  read,  "  In  the  beginning  was  the 
Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God.  .  .  . 
And  the  Word  became  flesh."  Evolu- 


*  This  is  not  saying  that  the  later  organic  struct- 
ure is  preformed  in  the  earlier ;  but,  whatever  the 
chromatin  of  the  nucleus  may  contain,  something 
there  does  determine  the  future  organism. 


198      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

tion  has  been  a  progressive  revelation  of 
the  Word.  "  Of  the  increase  of  his  govern- 
ment," it  was  said  by  a  prophet  of  old, 
"there  shall  be  no  end."  The  history  of 
life  has  been  the  movement  of  a  Messianic 
prophecy,  and  of  the  increase  of  the  king- 
dom of  the  Word  of  life  there  has  been  no 
end.  "  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and 
I  work,"  said  the  Christ;  and  the  work  of 
the  Father  and  the  Son  has  been  and  is 
something  positively  grander,  something 
more  continuously  and  wondrously  benefi- 
cent and  beautiful,  than  in  our  common 
and  too  beggarly  hopes  of  heavenly  gain 
we  are  wont  to  conceive.  For  it  is  more 
than  bringing  balm  to  the  wounded,  or 
rest  for  the  weary;  it  is  the  strong, 
straightforward  work  of  God  from  the 
beginning  of  bringing  life  clear  through 
to  its  last,  full,  self-conscious  perfection 
and  immortal  love.  It  is,  and  shall  be, 
the  one  divine  work,  alone  worthy  of 
God,  who  takes  life  first  from  his  own 
self-existence,  and  plants  the  divine  seed 
of  it  in  the  darkness  at  the  root  of  the 
worlds ;  who  protects,  shelters,  hides,  and 


METHOD  OP  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      199 

develops  it  in  this  earthiness;  and  who 
in  his  time  and  season  lifts  it  above  the 
sod  into  its  spiritual  blossoming  in  his 
light.  The  last  consummate  fruit  of  this 
vital  method  and  goodness  of  the  Creator 
is  not  the  first  Adam,  who  dies,  but  the 
second  man,  who  is  of  heaven.  "How- 
beit,"  in  this  order  of  beneficent  evolution, 
"  that  was  not  first  which  is  spiritual,  but 
that  which  is  natural ;  and  afterward  that 
which  is  spiritual."  Life  sown  first  in 
corruption  is  raised  in  incorruption. 
"  And  as  we  have  borne  the  image  of  the 
earthy,  we  shall  also  bear  the  image  of  the 
heavenly."  In  this  present  time  we  who 
belong  both  to  the  natural,  which  is  dying, 
and  to  the  spiritual,  which  is  living,  "re- 
ceive the  earnest  of  the  Spirit";  at  the 
sure  and  luminous  centre  of  our  self-con- 
scious being  and  love,  we  receive  the  ear- 
nest of  the  Spirit,  witnessing  to  the  spirit 
which  is  within  man;  and,  having  re- 
ceived "  the  spirit  of  adoption,  whereby  we 
cry,  Abba,  Father,"  we  know  ourselves 
also  as  children  of  the  resurrection.  Al- 
ready in  our  inward  renewal  of  faith  and 


200      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

hope,  death  is  swallowed  up  of  life ;  holy 
baptisms  of  the  eternal  love  fall  upon  our 
closest,  dearest  friendships  in  the  descent, 
like  the  heavenly  dove,  of  a  sacred  sorrow  ; 
and  death,  so  often  returning,  imparts  to 
our  life  in  the  home,  and  in  the  commun- 
ion of  the  church,  deeper  and  more  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  love,  and  its  prayer  of 
faith  for  immortality.  Our  human  hearts, 
startled  at  first  it  may  be  by  the  touch  of 
God's  silent  servant  of  death,  awake  more 
clearly  and  surely  to  an  expectation  of  life 
which  shall  be  alike  worthy  of  our  power 
of  loving,  and  worthy  of  God's  power 
to  finish  the  work  which  He  has  begun  in 
our  human  hearts  and  their  happiest  com- 
panionships. For,  as  the  Scripture  puts  it, 
as  though  with  a  fine  scorn  of  the  faithless- 
ness which  could  imagine  the  Lord  of  life 
to  be  frustrated  in  his  work,  God  "  wrought 
us  for  this  very  thing,"  that  "  what  is  mor- 
tal may  be  swallowed  up  of  life."  We, 
looking  backwards  and  beneath  us,  look- 
ing upwards  and  above,  being  ourselves  of 
the  same  flesh  and  having  the  Spirit  of 
him  in  whom  life  attained  its  highest 


METHOD  OP  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      201 

human  form,  in  whom  "the  Life  was 
manifested,"  and  of  whom  also  they  who 
had  seen  the  glory  of  his  life  declared  that 
it  was  not  "possible"  for  God's  holy  one 
that  his  soul  should  be  holden  of  death, 

—  we,    likewise,    should    know  that    all 
things    are    ours,    whether    our    earthly 
friends  and  comrades  of   the    years  gone 
by,    "whether   Paul,  or   Apollos,   or   Ce- 
phas,"—  whatever  their  names    may  be, 

—  whether  "the  world,  or  life,  or  death, 
or  things  present,  or  things   to   come ; " 
all  are   ours:  for  we   "are   Christ's,  and 
Christ  is  God's":    "For  God  is  not  the 
God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living."* 

We  turn  in  conclusion  to  Him  in  whom 
the  life  was  manifested,  for  the  last  word 
concerning  the  service  and  use  of  death 
in  God's  method  and  purpose  of  life's  sur- 
vival and  perfecting.  "It  is  expedient 
for  you,"  said  the  Christ,  "that  I  go 
away."  Our  Lord  recognized  thus  a  defi- 
nite usefulness  for  his  disciples  in  his 
final  departure  from  their  world  of  sight 
*  1  Cor.  iii.  22-23;  Matt.  xxii.  32. 


202      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

and  sense.  The  Scriptures  justify  us  in 
thinking  of  our  Lord  as  representing  man 
in  the  full  idea  of  his  nature,  and  in  all 
the  possibilities  of  his  being.  The  life 
which  he  lived  on  the  earth,  and  which 
was  exalted  in  his  ascension,  is  our  life: 
"  It  behooved  him  in  all  things  to  be  made 
like  unto  his  brethren."*  If  Jesus,  there- 
fore, could  perceive  a  certain  and  definite 
expediency  in  his  leaving  this  world,  we 
must  recognize  in  his  departure  from  his 
disciples  an  instance  and  illustration  of 
the  same  general  law  of  moral  utility, 
under  which  for  his  disciples  in  their 
times,  as  for  the  Master  in  his  hour,  it  shall 
be  expedient  for  them  to  go  hence.  If  it 
were  necessary  for  the  Lord  to  depart  that 
he  might  continue  his  ministry  for  his 
disciples  elsewhere,  going  to  prepare  a 
place  for  them;  if  he  could  become  more 
to  his  friends  henceforth  by  his  ascension 
than  he  could  have  been  by  walking  longer 
as  the  Son  of  man  before  them;  so,  like- 
wise, shall  the  same  divine  expediency 
overtake,  and  enfold  in  its  beneficent  pur- 
*  Heb.  ii.  17. 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      203 

pose,  each  of  the  disciples  in  his  time; 
there  shall  come  a  day  when  it  shall  be 
useful  also  for  each  one  of  us,  his  disci- 
ples, as  it  was  expedient  for  the  Master, 
to  go  hence  and  be  seen  here  no  more, 
although  the  Father  only  may  know  the 
seasons  best  for  his  sons.  The  God  of  the 
living  shall  take  us  also  up  into  the  same 
larger  and  higher  expediency  of  death, 
from  which  the  Son  of  his  love  was  not 
made  exempt.  He  once  said,  "It  is  ex- 
pedient"; and  thereby  before  all  human 
sorrow,  and  in  the  midst  of  our  human 
incompleteness,  he  declared  the  superior 
law  and  larger  wisdom  of  the  Father's 
beneficence  in  every  necessity  of  death. 
There  is  one  law,  and  one  Spirit,  and  one 
love.  Death  ever  serves,  and  never  really 
rules.  It  only  seems  to  reign  for  a  little 
while.  It  shall  be  no  more,  when  its  full 
measure  of  service  for  life  —  the  true  life, 
the  life  eternal  —  shall  have  been  ren- 
dered. Already  it  is  overcome  in  the  self- 
conscious  immortality  of  love.  Among 
the  disciples  of  the  Lord,  in  the  commun- 
ion of  his  Spirit,  death  can  henceforth 


204      METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE 

enter  only  as  something  expedient,  often 
far  more  spiritually  expedient  than  we 
may  now  know,  —  as  was  the  Lord's  ab- 
sence for  a  little  while  from  his  chosen 
friends.  He  that  believeth  "hath  eternal 
life  " ;  and  forgetting  the  pains,  the  suf- 
ferings, the  sorrows,  which  are  in  their 
nature  temporal,  he  may  possess  within 
himself  the  love,  the  life,  the  dear  friend- 
ships and  the  joys  of  companionship, 
which  are  eternal.  In  memory  and  in 
hope,  faith  has  the  eternal,  and  is  passed 
from  death  unto  life.  The  last  prayer  of 
the  Lord  of  life  is  that  we  may  be  made 
perfect  in  one.  His  promise  fulfils  the 
law  and  the  gospel  of  life  from  the  begin- 
ning. Life  has,  and  can  have,  no  other 
end  and  destiny,  for  it  can  have  no  other 
fulfilment.  Personal  fellowship,  made 
perfect  in  love,  is  Life's  only  conceivable 
consummation.  Anything  less  divine 
were  no  completion.  The  Scriptures  of 
Life — all  its  prophets  and  psalms  —  are 
a  holy  word  of  nature,  which  cannot  pass 
away  until  all  shall  be  fulfilled.  The 
fulfilment  of  all  is  in  the  risen  and  as- 


METHOD  OF  POSITIVE  BENEVOLENCE      205 

cended  Life  with  the  Father.  From  this 
divine  fellowship  is  declared  to  us  also 
the  sure  word  of  immortality:  "Because 
I  live,  ye  shall  live  also."  "Whether  we 
live,  we  live  unto  the  Lord:  or  whether 
we  die,  we  die  unto  the  Lord:  whether 
we  live  therefore,  or  die,  we  are  the 
Lord's."  "Whether  we  wake  or  sleep, 
we  should  live  together  with  him." 

Life,  therefore,  to  the  children  of  the 
Highest,  can  have  no  broken  lines.  Meas- 
ured in  time's  brief  sections,  it  may  seem 
incomplete;  drawn  on  larger  scale,  all 
life's  ways  are  seen  to  meet;  in  God's  own 
plan  and  creation  of  it,  our  life  can  have 
no  brokenness.  Eternity  frames  a  finished 
picture.  There  is  nothing  really  sad,  for 
there  is  no  eternal  sorrow  in  the  heart  of 
God.  In  His  blessedness  over  all  forever, 
our  life  shall  keep  its  perfect  troth,  and 
have  its  completed  love. 


APPENDIX 


NOTE  I,  p.  19 

Weisraann's  view  may  be  stated  in  his  own  words 
in  the  following  abstract  of  it  which  he  gave  at  the 
close  of  his  essay  on  Life  and  Death :  — 

"  I.  Natural  death  occurs  only  among  multicellu- 
lar  beings;  it  is  not  found  among  unicellular  or- 
ganisms. The  process  of  encystment  in  the  latter 
is  in  no  way  comparable  with  death. 

"II.  Natural  death  first  appears  among  the 
lowest  Heteroplastid  Metazoa,  in  the  limitation 
of  all  the  cells  collectively  to  one  generation,  and 
of  the  somatic  or  body-cells  proper  to  a  restricted 
period :  the  somatic  cells  afterwards  in  the  higher 
Metazoa  came  to  last  several  and  even  many  gen- 
erations, and  life  was  lengthened  to  a  corresponding 
degree. 

"III.  This  limitation  went  hand  in  hand  with 
a  differentiation  of  the  cells  of  the  organism  into 
reproductive  and  somatic  cells,  in  accordance  with 
the  principle  of  division  of  labor.  This  differ- 
entiation took  place  by  the  operation  of  natural 
selection. 

"IV.  The  fundamental  biogenetic  law  applies 
only  to  multicellular  beings ;  it  does  not  apply  to 

207 


208  APPENDIX 

unicellular  forms  of  life.  This  depends,  on  the  one 
hand,  upon  the  mode  of  reproduction  by  fission 
which  obtains  among  theMonoplastides  (unicellular 
organisms),  and  on  the  other,  upon  the  necessity, 
induced  by  sexual  reproduction,  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  a  unicellular  stage  in  the  development  of 
the  Polyplastides  (multicellular  organisms) . 

"  V.  Death  itself,  and  the  longer  or  shorter  dura- 
tion of  life,  both  depend  entirely  on  adaptation. 
Death  is  not  an  essential  attribute  of  living  matter; 
it  is  neither  necessarily  associated  with  reproduc- 
tion, nor  a  necessary  consequence  of  it."  (Essays 
upon  Heredity,  vol.  i.  pp.  160-161.) 

The  similar  view  of  Biitschli,  to  which  reference 
was  made  above,  may  be  given  in  this  extract: 
"  When  we  observe  the  history  of  the  continual  pro- 
duction of  certain  Protozoa,  ...  we  meet  the  most 
singular  fact  that  in  the  life  of  these  organisms 
death,  in  the  sense  of  the  annihilation  of  organized 
matter,  and  from  causes  which  are  inherent  in  the 
organism,  does  not  properly  occur."  He  regarded 
the  cause  of  death  in  the  organisms  to  be  the  failure 
of  a  "certain  fermentative  element,"  which  is  nec- 
essary in  order  that  the  chemical  transformation 
may  renew  itself.  In  the  Protozoa  this  necessary 
element  is  renewed  by  conjugation  and  division. 
He  located  this  element  of  continuous  life  in  the 
nucleus.  "  The  gradually  sinking  life-energy  of 
the  Infusoria  is  again  reinforced  through  conjuga- 
tion." (Zoologischer  Anzeiger,  5.  1882,  pp.  65-66.) 

M.  Nussbaum,  also,  advanced  somewhat  similar 
observations  with  regard  to  the  continuance  of  life 
among  the  Protozoa.  (Arch,  fur  Mik.  Anat.,  41, 


APPENDIX  209 

p.  119.)     Weismann,  however,  took  these  sugges- 
tions up  into  a  working-theory  of  heredity. 

NOTE  U,  p.  19 

Maupas  published  'the  results  of  his  investiga- 
tions in  a  series  of  notes  in  the  Comptes  Rendus  in 
the  years  1886-88.  He  also  published  a  long  mono- 
graph upon  the  Multiplication  of  Ciliated  Infusoria 
in  the  Archives  de  Zoologie,  2d  Series,  Vol.  6,  pp. 
165  sq.  In  this  article  he  gives  a  complete  account 
of  his  prolonged  investigations,  sums  up  the  facts 
observed,  and  shows  that  Weismann's  supposition 
that  death  occurs  first  among  the  Metazoa  is  re- 
moved by  the  results  of  his  investigations. 


NOTE  IK,  p.  23 

In  a  reply  to  criticisms,  which  was  published  in 
Nature  (Feb.,  1890,  Vol.  41,  pp.  317-323),  Weis- 
manu  maintains  his  original  positions  with  regard 
to  the  potential  immortality  of  the  Protozoa,  while 
he  defines  some  of  his  views  more  clearly.  He 
holds  that  the  first  differentiation  of  cells  pro- 
duced two  sets  of  cells,  —  the  somatic,  consisting 
of  the  mortal  cells  of  the  body  proper,  and  the 
germinal  cells,  which  are  immortal.  He  defines 
this  immortality  as  one  not  of  the  organic  sub- 
stance, but  of  "  a  definite  form  of  activity."  He  con- 
ceives the  protoplasm  of  the  unicellular  organisms 
to  be  such  that  the  cycle  of  life  returns  to  the  same 
starting-point,  like  the  circulation  of  water  in  the 
inorganic  world.  "  As  in  the  physical  and  chemical 
properties  of  water  there  is  no  inherent  cause  for 


210  APPENDIX 

the  cessation  of  this  cycle,  so  there  is  no  clear  rea- 
son in  the  physical  condition  of  unicellular  organ- 
isms why  the  cycle  of  life,  i.e.  of  division,  growth 
by  assimilation,  and  repeated  division,  should  ever 
end;  and  this  characteristic  it  is  which  I  have 
termed  immortality."  He  considers  that  it  is  pos- 
sible under  some  circumstances,  and  to  some  extent, 
for  the  protoplasm  to  be  so  modified  that  "the 
metabolic  activity  no  longer  exactly  follows  its  own 
orbit,  but  after  more  or  fewer  revolutions  comes  to 
a  standstill,  and  results  in  death."  All  living  mat- 
ter is  variable;  why  should  not  variations  in  the 
protoplasm  have  also  occurred  which,  while  they 
fulfilled  certain  functions  of  the  individual  economy 
better,  caused  a  metabolism  which  did  not  exactly 
repeat  itself,  i.e.  sooner  or  later  came  to  a  condition 
of  rest  ?  "  Immortality,  in  the  scientific  sense  in- 
tended, he  defines  as  "a  cyclical  acting  of  organic 
material  devoid  of  any  intrinsic  momentum  which 
would  lead  to  its  cessation";  and  he  says,  "I  main- 
tain, therefore,  in  its  entirety  my  original  statement 
that  monoplastids  and  the  germ-cells  of  higher 
forms  have  no  natural  death."  Of  Maupas'  ex- 
periments and  criticisms,  Weismann  has  this  to 
say :  "  Even  were  his  observations  correct,  they 
would  still  fall  short  of  proving  his  conclusions; 
they  would  prove  nothing  against  the  immortality 
of  the  Protozoa,  or  for  a  rejuvenescence  in  the  sense 
here  intended;  they  would  rather  state  the  plati- 
tude that  ovum  and  spermatozoon  must  die,  if  the 
condition  of  their  continued  existence,  namely, 
fusion,  inevitable  in  most  species  of  plants  and 
animals,  be  prohibited;  but  this  is  an  accidental, 


APPENDIX  211 

not  a  natural  death.  Richard  Hertwig  (Ueber  die 
Conjugation  der  Infusorien,  Munchen,  Ib89)  has 
also  briefly  shown  that  the  facts,  on  which  Maupas 
bases  his  inferences,  are  not  universally  true ;  that 
Infusoria,  hindered  from  conjugation,  do  not  die, 
but  increase  by  division,  and  may  produce  whole 
colonies  of  animals,  nay,  that  they  are  generally 
rendered  thus  abnormally  prolific." 

By  rejuvenescence,  in  the  sense  intended  above, 
Weismann  means  the  theory  which  supposes  that 
conjugation  is  necessary  to  the  continuance  of  re- 
production,—  a  rejuvenescence  without  which  the 
reproductive  power  itself  would  fail.  To  this  view 
he  opposes  his  theory,  which  may  be  stated  in  his 
own  summary  of  it  as  follows :  "  The  first  result 
and  meaning  of  conjugation  may  be  provisionally 
expressed  in  the  following  formula:  Conjugation 
originally  signified  a  strengthening  of  the  organism 
in  relation  to  reproduction,  which  happened  when, 
from  some  external  cause,  such  as  want  of  oxygen, 
warmth,  or  food,  the  growth  of  the  individual  to 
the  extent  necessary  for  reproduction  could  not 
take  place."  ...  "  According  to  my  theory,  con- 
jugation at  first  only  occurred  under  unfavorable 
conditions,  and  assisted  the  species  to  overcome  such 
difficulties."  (Essays  upon  Heredity,  vol.  i.  p.  294.) 

In  an  elaborate  essay  upon  Amphimixis  or  the 
Essential  Meaning  of  Conjugation  and  Sexual  Re- 
production, which  was  published  in  1891  (Essays 
upon  Heredity,  vol.  ii.  p.  98),  Weismann  again 
maintains  vigorously  his  original  position  as  to  the 
immortality  of  the  Protozoa  against  Maupas'  criti- 
cisms. He  regards  the  death  of  the  unconjugated 


212  APPENDIX 

Infusoria  as  abnormal.  Natural,  or  physiological 
death  of  an  organism  occurs  when  its  destruction 
"is  dependent  on  some  adaptation  especially  di- 
rected to  this  end  "  (p.  205).  Such  adaptation  for 
the  destruction  of  the  body-cells  is  found  first 
among  the  Metazoa.  Weismann  ridicules  the  idea 
that  there  is  any  natural  necessity  for  death  as  an 
idea  which  has  "  its  origin  in  the  old  mystic  con- 
ception of  life."  He  regards  "  the  power  of  living 
on  indefinitely  when  the  vital  processes  have  once 
begun,  as  the  fundamental  peculiarity  of  living 
matter  "(p.  209). 

NOTE  IV,  p.  24 

Mr.  Darwin  regarded  sexual  selection  as  a  true 
cause  in  nature,  co-working  with  natural  selection ; 
but  he  did  not  throw  any  light  upon  the  question 
of  the  origin  and  function  of  sexuality  itself.  This 
question  has  more  recently  become  a  prominent 
one  in  the  biological  world.  Mr.  Wallace  came  to 
conclusions  differing  from  Mr.  Darwin  concerning 
the  effect  of  sexual  selection  in  the  coloration  of 
animals;  but  in  one  respect  he  goes  beyond  Dar- 
win, when  he  holds  that,  "  Diversity  of  sex  becomes, 
therefore,  of  primary  importance  as  the  cause  of 
variation."  {Darwinism,  p.  439.)  Weismann  has 
gone  far  beyond  the  earlier  Darwinism  in  his 
strenuous  insistence  upon  the  prime  importance  of 
sexuality  in  evolution.  He  has  expressed  his  final 
conclusion  in  the  following  words :  "  I  am  con- 
vinced that  the  two  forms  of  amphimixis  —  namely, 
the  conjugation  of  unicellular,  and  the  sexual  repro- 


APPENDIX  213 

duction  of  multicellular  organisms  —  are  means  of 
producing  variation.  The  process  furnishes  an  in- 
exhaustible supply  of  fresh  combinations  of  indi- 
vidual variations  which  are  indispensable  to  the 
process  of  selection."  (The  Germ-Plasm,  p.  413.) 

Weismann's  views  have  been  vigorously  combated 
by  an  American  biologist,  the  late  Professor  J.  A. 
Ryder,  in  an  article  printed  in  the  Proceedings  of  the 
American  Philosophical  Society,  1890  (pp.  109  sq.), 
and  also  in  a  lecture  which  was  published  in  the 
Wood's  Holl  Biological  Lectures  for  the  year  1894. 
Professor  Ryder  holds  that  "  sexuality  has  arisen 
very  gradually,  and  only  through  an  extensive 
series  of  very  gentle  progressive,  and  successive 
steps."  He  believes  that  it  not  only  includes 
variability,  but  also  provides  "greatly  increased 
chances  for  the  survival  of  the  thus  protected 
germs,  or  viviparously  produced  young."  But  in 
utter  rejection  of  Weismann's  theories  of  the  deter- 
mination of  life  from  the  germ,  Professor  Ryder 
sought  to  bring  all  the  phenomena  of  heredity 
under  a  purely  physical,  dynamical  conception. 
He  found  in  nutrition  the  impelling  force  for  the 
differentiation  of  sex,  and  this,  as  well  as  all  other 
differentiations,  he  would  work  out  mathematically 
as  a  problem  of  the  continuation  of  energy  under 
given  mechanical  conditions.  Sexuality,  he  be- 
lieves, is  the  effect  of  continuous  growth  caused  by 
cumulative  integrations.  The  "setting-aside  the 
germ-plasm  "  is  no  "  device  "  for  any  ulterior  pur- 
pose. He  affirms,  however,  that  "  sexuality  has 
arisen,  in  the  main,  under  conditions  determined 
by  natural  selection  " ;  and  he  even  says  of  it  that 


214  APPENDIX 

"sexuality  is  altruistic  in  nature."  (Biol.  Lect- 
ures, Wood's  Holl,  1894,  p.  35.)  Professor  Ryder 
objects  to  Weismann's  theory  that  "its  extreme 
elaboration  is  its  greatest  weakness  " ;  the  opposite 
objection  would  lie  against  his  dynamical  hypothe- 
sis of  inheritance;  its  extreme  simplicity  is  its 
greatest  weakness.  The  manifold  diversity  of  facts 
and  processes  in  the  development  of  life  refuses  to 
be  reduced  to  a  single  physical  equation. 

A  more  cautious  view  of  the  problem  of  the 
origin  of  sex  is  that  expressed  by  Professor  Wilson 
in  his  recent  volume  on  "  The  Cell  in  Development 
and  Inheritance."  He  says  :  "According  to  the  older 
and  more  familiar  dynamic  hypothesis  .  .  .  the 
essential  end  of  sexuality  is  rejuvenescence,  i.e.  the 
restoration  of  the  growth  energy  and  the  inaugura- 
tion of  a  new  cycle  of  cell-division.  .  .  .  That  con- 
jugation or  fertilization  actually  has  such  a  dynamic 
effect  is  disputed  by  no  one.  What  is  not  deter- 
mined is  whether  this  is  the  primary  motive  of  the 
process  —  i.e.  whether  the  need  of  fertilization  is 
a  primary  attribute  of  living  matter,  or  whether  it 
has  been  secondarily  acquired  in  order  to  insure  a 
mixture  of  germ-plasms  derived  from  different 
sources."  In  his  opinion  the  problem  is  not  yet 
solved  as  to  the  function  of  fertilization,  whether 
it  is,  as  Weismann  held,  to  multiply  variation,  or 
whether,  as  Hatschek  maintained,  it  has  the  "con- 
verse function  of  checking  variation,  and  holding  the 
species  true  to  the  specific  type."  He  says  :  "  The 
present  state  of  knowledge  does  not,  I  believe,  allow 
of  a  decision  between  these  diverse  views."  (Op. 
cit.,  p.  130.)  But  why  may  not  both  be  true?  It 


APPENDIX  215 

is  not  impossible  to  conceive  that  the  same  principle 
of  fertilization  may  work  in  both  directions,  and 
for  the  securing  of  both  vital  results ;  it  may  serve 
to  neutralize  slight,  conflicting,  and  useless  indi- 
vidual variations,  and  at  the  same  time  to  accumu- 
late concurrent  variations  along  lines  of  useful 
adaptation ;  as  opposite  waves  may  lay  each  other 
level,  and  concurrent  waves  may  become  cumula- 
tive in  their  force.  This  double  working  of  sexuality 
both  for  the  maintenance  and  the  variability  of  the 
species  would  thus  furnish  only  another  and  beau- 
tiful illustration  of  the  law  of  economy  of  energy 
in  nature. 

In  the  Evolution  of  Sex  Geddes  and  Thomson 
seek  to  find  a  deeper  physiological  necessity  for  the 
origin  of  sex  (pp.  306  sq.).  Their  view,  however, 
does  not  exclude  the  conception  that  as  a  secondary 
adaptation  sex  is  a  source  of  variation. 

NOTE  V,  p.  26 

Mr.  Arthur  M.  Marshall  thinks  that  Weismann's 
original  explanation  of  the  occurrence  of  death  on 
account  of  its  utility,  although  ingenious,  was  in- 
sufficient because  it  did  "not  attempt  to  explain 
the  real  nature  of  death,  nor  how  it  came  about  in 
the  first  instance."  (Biological  Lectures,  p.  278.) 
He  thinks,  however,  that  in  this  respect,  Maupas' 
researches  furnish  the  very  evidence,  which  Weis- 
mann  lacked,  of  his  theory  that  death  occurs  as  a 
consequence  of  the  separation  of  the  germ-plasm 
from  the  somatic  cells,  and  that  "  length  of  life  is 
dependent  upon  the  number  of  generations  of 


216  APPENDIX 

somatic  cells  which  can  succeed  one  another  in  the 
course  of  a  single  life ;  and  furthermore  that  this 
number,  as  well  as  the  duration  of  each  single  cell- 
generation,  is  predestined  in  the  germ  itself." 
While  showing  that  natural  death  occurs  among 
the  Protozoa,  and  that  the  tendency  to  it  may  be  in- 
herited by  the  Metazoa,  Maupas'  results,  says  Mr. 
Marshall,  "confirm  in  the  fullest  manner  Weis- 
mann's  bold  suggestions  (i.)  that  the  original  oc- 
currence of  death  is  intimately  connected  with 
sexual  reproduction,  if  not  indeed  an  actual  conse- 
quence of  it;  (ii.)  that  the  number  of  generations 
of  somatic  cells  which  can  succeed  one  another  in 
the  course  of  a  single  life  may  be  strictly  limited. 
Maupas'  experiments  seem  to  me  to  afford  the  very 
evidence  of  which  Weismann  was  in  search." 
(Ibid.,  p.  285.)  After  applying  these  results  to  the 
Metazoa,  Mr.  Marshall  draws  these  conclusions 
among  others :  "  (i.)  Death  is  not  an  intrinsic 
necessity,  either  of  life  or  of  organization,  (ii.) 
Natural  death  first  appeared,  so  far  as  we  know  at 
present,  among  the  higher  Protozoa,  (iii.)  Death 
is  closely  associated  with  the  occurrence  of  conju- 
gation, and  the  consequent  alternation  of  sexual 
and  asexual  modes  of  reproduction,  (iv.)  The 
asexual  mode  of  reproduction,  by  fission,  is  the 
more  primitive  one.  Conjugation,  or  sexual  repro- 
duction, gives  an  advantage  in  the  struggle  for 
existence,  and  at  first  a  luxury,  has  through  the 
action  of  natural  selection  become  a  necessity." 
(Ibid.,  pp.  287-8.) 

Maupas,  in  his  review  of  his  results  in  the  arti- 
cles already  cited,  holds  that  the  senescence,  which 


APPENDIX  217 

was  shown  after  a  succession  of  generations  in  his 
cultures,  and  the  death  in  which  it  at  last  resulted, 
were  the  natural  result  of  the  prolonged  exercise 
of  the  functions  of  the  organism  which  used  itself 
up.  He  is  careful,  however,  to  limit  his  assertion 
to  the  species  actually  experimented  upon,  and  re- 
marks that  the  cause  of  natural  death  is  an  obscure 
subject  in  biology.  His  results  do  not  prove  that 
indefinite  cell-division  might  not  be  continued  in 
still  lower  organisms,  not  sufficiently  developed  to 
avail  themselves  of  the  improved  method  of  reju- 
venescence by  occasional  or  cyclic  conjugations. 
His  facts,  so  far  as  they  go,  indicate  a  natural  limi- 
tation of  cell-division,  unless  it  be  reinforced  by 
conjugation,  or  rudimentary  sexual  reproduction. 
A  recent  writer  in  the  Lancet  seems  to  me  there- 
fore to  go  beyond  the  known  facts  when  he  still 
asserts  that  "  it  has  been  shown  that  all  proto- 
plasm, all  living  matter,  is  not  of  necessity  mortal." 
We  may  admit,  however,  the  statement  of  the  same 
writer,  that  so  far  as  yet  proved,  "  Death  as  an 
incident  in  the  evolutionary  cycle  is  not  inevitable 
to  all  living  beings."  It  is  also  seen  to  be  true,  as 
this  writer  observes  further  of  the  multicellular 
organism,  that  "the  price  it  pays  for  its  greater 
elaboration  of  living  is  its  inevitable  death."  The 
cause  of  death  in  these  more  specialized  organisms 
this  writer  would  find  either  (1)  in  imperfection  of 
nutrition,  or  (2)  in  some  toxic  product  of  waste, 
or  (3)  in  some  lack  of  stimulus.  (Lancet,  Article 
on  The  Breaking  Strain,  May  23,  1896,  p.  1413.) 
See  also  Geddes  and  Thomson,  Evolution  of  Sex, 
pp.  258-262. 


218  APPENDIX 

Weismann,  in  a  later  essay,  returned  to  the  ques- 
tion concerning  the  cause  of  death.  (Op.  cit. 
vol.  ii.  pp.  72  sq.)  He  finds  his  original  view  con- 
firmed by  Dr.  Klein's  recent  observations  with  re- 
gard to  the  natural  death  of  the  body-cells  of  the 
Volvox,  one  of  the  earliest  multicellular  organisms. 
"  As  soon  as  the  germ-cells  are  matured,  and  have 
left  the  body  of  the  Alga,  the  flagellate  somatic 
cells  begin  to  shrink,  and  in  one  or  two  days  are  all 
dead  "  (p.  77).  This,  according  to  Weismann,  is  one 
of  the  instances  of  the  first  introduction  of  natural 
death.  Here  we  see  death  in  its  beginnings.  It 
occurs  because  the  body-cells  have  acquired  some 
special  nutritive  function  for  the  benefit  of  the 
germ-cells  ;  and  when  the  latter  have  matured,  and 
that  functional  activity  of  the  body-cells  is  no 
longer  useful,  the  special  protoplasmic  modification 
which  has  fitted  them  to  discharge  such  function, 
hastens  the  introduction  of  their  death. 

There  is  room  for  much  further  investigation  of 
the  nature  of  vital  continuity  among  the  lower 
Infusoria.  As  Professor  E.  B.  Wilson  remarks, 
"The  cyclical  character  of  cell-division  still  remains 
sub  judice."  (The  Cell  in  Development  and  Inheri- 
tance, p.  163.)  In  Sedgwick's  and  Wilson's  General 
Biology,  the  present  state  of  knowledge  with  refer- 
ence to  the  Amoeba  is  thus  stated :  "  However  abun- 
dant the  food-supply,  Amoeba  never  grows  beyond  a 
certain  maximum  limit.  After  this  limit  has  been 
attained  the  animal  sooner  or  later  divides  by  'fis- 
sion '  into  two  smaller  Amoebae.  Thus  the  existence 
of  an  individual  Amoeba  is  normally  terminated, 
not  by  death,  but  by  resolution  into  two  new  indi- 


APPENDIX  219 

viduals.  This  process  is  the  simplest  possible  form 
of  agamogenesis,  and  Amoeba  is  not  known  to  mul- 
tiply in  any  other  way."  (p.  163.)  "It  is  not 
known  whether  or  not  the  Amoeba  ever  dies  of  old 
age."  (p.  166.) 

NOTE  VI,  p.  28 

Whatever  may  be  the  ultimate  causes  of  death, 
Weismann's  conclusion  as  to  the  utility  of  death, 
or,  as  it  may  be  called,  its  functional  use  in  its  con- 
nection with  organic  life,  would  not  be  set  aside  if 
some  inherent  necessity  of  death  could  be  proved. 
At  present  such  necessity  is  an  assumption.  So 
far  as  our  knowledge  goes,  Weismann  can  still 
hold  that  any  natural  necessity  of  "  death  by  se- 
nescence," as  Maupas  calls  it,  is  an  unproved  assump- 
tion, not  contained  in  any  knowledge  which  we 
have  of  the  molecular  relations  of  living  and  multi- 
plying matter  in  its  simplest  terms. 

In  our  discussion  above,  however,  we  have  not 
made  the  supposed  immortality  of  even  the  sim- 
plest protoplasmic  organization,  or  any  inherent 
possibility  of  an  endless  succession  of  its  genera- 
tions, the  basis  of  the  assertion  of  the  original  utility 
of  death.  These  facts  are  sufficient  to  justify  this 
conclusion:  (1)  The  occurrence  of  death  and  of  an 
improved  sexual  method  of  preserving  and  upbuild- 
ing life,  appear  in  close  connection,  although  the 
one  may  not  be  said  to  be  the  direct  consequence 
of  the  other.  (2)  Both  these  occurrences  are 
useful;  they  are  joined  together  in  a  concurrent 
service  for  the  advance  of  life.  The  one  without 


220  APPENDIX 

the  other  could  not  do  its  perfect  work  for  the 
maintenance  and  the  benefit  of  life.  If  the  one, 
whatever  its  primitive  cause,  may  be  regarded  as 
an  adaptation,  which  natural  selection  may  seize 
upon  for  the  advantage  of  the  species,  so  also  must 
the  other  be  so  regarded.  (3)  Death  upon  its  first 
occurrence,  like  sex,  must  be  regarded  as  a  useful 
adaptation,  because  all  the  facts  and  considerations 
which  Weismaim  adduces  (irrespective  of  his  theo- 
ries) indicate  that  it  follows  and  illustrates  a  prin- 
ciple of  utility.  (4)  To  these  considerations  should 
be  added  as  confirmatory  of  its  initial  usefulness 
such  evidences  of  its  utility  as  we  may  find  farther 
down  in  the  history  of  the  development  of  life. 

Several  indications,  moreover,  of  a  law  of  utility 
in  the  initial  working  of  death  may  be  derived 
from  some  of  Maupas'  own  observations.  Thus 
he  noticed  that  the  new  method  of  conjugation 
between  two  cells  does  not  increase,  but  diminishes 
the  number  of  descendant  cells ;  it  also  exposes 
the  conjugated  cells  to  peril  during  a  period  of 
dormant  activity;  but  it  secures  the  preservation 
of  the  species.  This  Maupas  supposed  to  be  its 
unique  end.  Here  then  nature  is  seen  very  early 
sacrificing  the  individual  for  the  species.  Death, 
in  putting  out  of  the  way  feebler  unconjugated  cells, 
works  as  an  adaptive  advantage  for  the  success  of 
the  species.  Maupas  noticed  also  that  the  degen- 
erate forms  in  his  cultures  were  enabled  to  con- 
tinue and  multiply  only  by  great  care.  In  a  free 
state  individual  cells,  which  might  become  degen- 
erate, would  succumb  soon  after  their  appearance. 
(Arch,  de  Zool.  2d  Series,  vi.  p.  211.) 


APPENDIX  221 

His  investigations  bring  out  further  the  interest- 
ing fact  that  one  of  the  first  and  most  important 
degradations  of  senescence  consists  in  atrophy  at 
first  partial,  then  more  complete,  of  the  sexual 
organs.  (Ibid.,  p.  261.)  This  observation  in  organ- 
isms where  these  functions  of  sex  are  rudimentary, 
shows  again  how  closely  death  follows  the  intro- 
duction of  a  more  advantageous  method  of  repro- 
duction ;  and  it  would  seem  to  confirm  Weismann's 
view  of  the  immortality  of  the  germ-plasm  under 
favorable  conditions.  For  by  conjugation  the  degen- 
eracy of  the  nucleus  is  avoided.  There  is,  at  least 
in  these  Infusoria,  a  process  of  its  cyclical  renewal. 
Maupas  further  observes  that  the  individuals  af- 
flicted with  this  first  degree  of  degeneration  can 
still  continue  to  live  and  multiply ;  but  such  life  has 
something  abnormal  about  it,  until  it  becomes 
completely  useless.  "  They  and  all  their  descend- 
ants, in  short,  are  doomed  to  an  inevitable  death. 
They  live  still  an  individual  life ;  but  they  are  dead 
to  the  life  of  the  species."  (Ibid.,  pp.  261-2.)  Thus 
death  strikes  first  at  forms  which  have  become 
useless  to  the  species.  When  nature's  method  of 
keeping  up  the  germ-plasm  of  the  nucleus  is 
interfered  with,  senescence  and  death  result.  All 
this  illustrates  Weismann's  original  conception  of 
the  utility  of  natural  death. 

NOTE  VII,  p.  29 

In  the  article  in  Nature,  already  referred  to, 
which  was  afterwards  enlarged  in  Remarks  on 
Certain  Problems  of  the  Day  (printed  in  Essays 


222  APPENDIX 

upon  Heredity,  vol.  ii.),  Weismann  elucidated  still 
further  his  original  thought  as  to  the  method 
by  which  natural  selection  operates  in  regard  to 
death.  His  latest  view  may  be  briefly  summarized 
as  follows :  the  unicellular  organisms  are  potentially 
immortal,  because  there  is  as  yet  no  separation 
between  the  germ-plasm  and  the  somatic  elements 
in  them,  or  not  such  a  differentiation  as  would 
leave  these  two  parts  sufficiently  separated  to  pur- 
sue independent  courses.  But  such  a  differentiation 
erelong  occurs.  It  appears  distinctly  marked  in 
the  Metazoa,  and  is  characteristic  of  all  multicellu- 
lar  organisms.  Thus  a  division  of  labor  is  intro- 
duced between  the  constituent  elements  of  the 
organism.  The  germ-plasm  bears  the  continuous, 
hereditary  substance,  which  cannot  naturally  perish. 
But  the  somatic  cells,  which  are  subordinate  to  the 
germ-cells,  may  become  mortal.  By  what  changes 
in  their  molecular  constitution  they  may  acquire  this 
possibility  of  mortality,  Weismann  does  not  profess 
to  be  able  to  state.  But  a  limited  number  of  their 
possible  divisions  and  multiplications  may  be  deter- 
mined in  the  nature  of  these  cells.  Better  adapta- 
tion of  them  to  the  nutrition  of  the  reproductive 
cells,  or  restriction  of  their  function,  might  have 
accelerated  the  introduction  of  a  natural  death  of 
the  somatic  cells.  "  The  more  specialized  a  cell 
becomes,  or  in  other  words,  the  more  it  is  entrusted 
with  only  one  distinct  function,  the  more  likely  is 
this  to  be  the  case."  Also,  if  we  adopt  the  principle 
of.  panmixia  (the  tendency  of  organs  no  longer  useful 
to  become  neutralized  in  the  course  of  the  contin- 
uous mixing  of  genital  variations,  and  consequently 


APPENDIX  223 

to  drop  out,  —  the  law  of  averages,  as  it  might  be 
named,  by  which  all  possible  degrees  of  perfection 
are  mixed,  and  the  whole  average  reduced  to  a 
lower  level  than  would  have  been  secured  by 
natural  selection  of  advantageous  variations),  it 
would  be  easy  to  conceive  how  the  immortality 
of  somatic  cells,  as  soon  as  it  became  useless, 
would  begin  to  disappear  and  eventually  be  lost. 
Natural  selection  was  "trained  to  bear  on  the 
immortality  of  the  germ-cells,  but  on  quite  other 
qualities  in  the  somatic  cells,  —  on  motility,  irri- 
tability, capacity  for  assimilation,  etc."  Death, 
having  thus  been  introduced,  it  would  become 
further  advantageous  to  the  species  among  higher 
organisms,  that  mutilated,  accidentally  crippled, 
and  inferior  forms  should  be  dropped;  so  that 
natural  selection  would  operate  to  determine  the 
duration  of  life,  —  to  lengthen  it  in  instances 
where  the  reproductive  processes  require  a  longer 
period  for  their  success,  and  to  shorten  it  where  a 
quicker  reproduction  would  be  advantageous  to  the 
species.  Among  the  lowest  Metazoa  it  is  advanta- 
geous that  the  body  should  consist  of  a  relatively 
small  number  of  cells,  and  that  the  reproductive 
cells  should  ripen  and  escape  all  together.  "If 
this  conclusion  be  accepted,  the  uselessness  of  a 
prolonged  life  to  the  somatic  cells  is  obvious,  and 
the  occurrence  of  death  at  the  time  of  the  extru- 
sion of  the  reproductive  cells  is  explained.  In  this 
manner  death  (of  the  soma)  and  reproduction  are 
here  made  to  coincide."  (<?/>.  cit.,  vol.  i.  p.  156.) 

We   are   not  obliged,  however,  to  assume  that 
natural  selection  is  the  chief  factor,  to  the  extent 


224  APPENDIX 

which  Weismann  supposes,  in  the  introduction  of 
death,  in  order  to  make  good  the  assertion  that  death 
works  along  the  lines  of  natural  utility,  and  has 
become  universally  prevalent  because  on  the  whole 
it  is  serviceable  to  life.  If  for  any  cause,  either 
from  the  limitations  of  possible  molecular  change 
in  the  matter  of  life,  or  from  some  unavoidable 
loss  of  energy  in  the  replacement  of  cells,  or  from 
any  supposed  necessities  of  growth,  a  liability  to 
death,  and  in  time  its  actuality,  is  assumed;  then 
natural  selection,  operating  as  a  secondary  factor, 
would  seize  upon  it,  emphasize,  and  disseminate 
it ;  and  thus  death  would  become  prevalent  as  an 
adaptation  of  the  species  to  its  total  conditions  of 
existence ;  death  would  reign  because  its  law  is  on 
the  whole  of  advantage  to  life.  It  is  not  improb- 
able that  in  the  further  development  of  our  evolu- 
tionary philosophy  natural  selection  may  be  given 
a  more  subordinate  role  than  the  part  which  is 
assigned  to  it  by  the  Darwinian  school. 

NOTE  VIII,  p.  117 

The  extent  to  which  some  modern  scientific 
thought  has  gone  in  dispensing  with  the  conception 
of  matter,  is  shown  in  an  article  by  the  German 
chemist,  Prof.  Wilhelm  Ostwald,  of  Leipsic,  en- 
titled, The  Failure  of  Scientific  Materialism,  which 
was  published  in  the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  vol. 
48,  pp.  589-601.  Reasoning  from  strictly  scientific 
premises,  without  ulterior  moral  object,  although 
not  unaware  of  the  further  inferences  which  moral 
philosophy  might  draw  from  his  conclusions,  this 


APPENDIX  225 

chemist  would  abandon  altogether  the  thought  of 
matter,  and  substitute  for  it  the  conception  of 
energy.  He  says,  "The  predicate  of  reality  can 
be  applied  only  to  energy."  "  The  supposition  that 
all  natural  phenomena  can  be  traced  back  pri- 
marily to  mechanical  factors  cannot  even  be  desig- 
nated as  an  available  working  hypothesis."  He 
regards  the  mechanical  theory  as  having  failed  to 
explain  the  facts.  He  says,  "  The  most  hopeful 
scientific  gift  which  the  departing  century  can 
offer  the  dawning  one  is  the  replacement  of  the 
mechanical  theory  by  the  energistic." 

NOTE  IX,  p.  150 

In  the  Contemporary  Review  for  December,  1879, 
there  is  an  interesting  article  in  which  it  is  shown 
that  the  principles  of  utility  and  beauty  are  far 
from  being  coextensive  among  the  flowers.  For 
instance,  the  writer,  Edward  Fry,  refers  to  the 
cleistogamous  flowers  of  the  violet  which  are  found 
to  exist  in  the  summer  and  autumn  after  all  the 
more  brilliant  flowers  have  gone.  He  adds :  "  The 
one  flower  has  everything  in  its  favor  —  honey  and 
a  beauty  of  color  and  of  smell  that  has  passed  into  a 
proverb  —  and  it  opens  its  blue  wings  to  the  visits  of 
the  insect  tribe  in  the  season  of  their  utmost  jol- 
lity and  life.  The  other  has  everything  against  it :  it 
is  inconspicuous,  scentless,  ugly,  and  closed.  Ainl 
yet,  which  succeeds  the  better  ?  Which  produces 
the  more  seed?  The  cleistogamous,  and  not  the 
brilliant  flowers ;  the  victory  is  with  ugliness,  and 
not  with  beauty."  He  gives  other  instances  of  the 


226  APPENDIX 

same  character,  "where  ugliness  has  borne  away 
the  palm  of  utility  from  beauty." 

NOTE  X,  p.  170 

A  hint  of  the  working  of  life  in  other  worlds 
than  ours  may  possibly  have  come  to  us  through 
the  spectroscope  if  the  statement  made  in  Nature 
(1882,  p.  400)  be  true,  that  absorption  due  to 
hydrocarbons  has  been  observed  to  take  place 
somewhere  between  the  solar  and  terrestrial  atmo- 
spheres ;  but  hydrocarbons  are  produced  under  the 
direction  of  life.  This  is  important  if  true.  (See 
Cope,  Origin  of  the  Fittest,  p.  432.) 

NOTE  XI,  p.  177 

In  the  line  of  reasoning  which  we  have  followed, 
no  account  has  been  taken  of  accidental  death. 
The  consideration  of  this  part  of  the  subject  would 
lead  along  a  distinct  line  of  inquiry,  and  we  have 
deemed  it  better  to  keep  the  two  apart.  We  will 
briefly  indicate  the  separate  line  of  inquiry  which 
a  thorough  discussion  of  accidental  death  should 
follow.  First,  it  would  require  a  study  of  the  re- 
lation among  the  lowest  organisms  between  that 
which  Weismann  designates  as  natural  or  physio- 
logical death,  and  abnormal  or  accidental  death. 
Our  biology  is  hardly  as  yet  in  a  position  to  give  us 
the  facts  which  we  must  have  as  a  scientific  foun- 
dation for  this  reasoning.  Secondly,  when  suf- 
ficient data  of  biological  facts  are  given,  we  must 
determine  the  relation  between  normal  and  abnor- 
mal death,  and  find  what,  if  any,  law  of  adaptation 


.APPENDIX  227 

or  use  obtains  in  the  relation  between  the  two.  In 
other  words,  the  inquiry  is  to  be  made  whether  the 
abnormal  deaths  also  do  not  fall  under  some  com- 
prehensive law  of  utility.  Thirdly,  the  inquiry 
would  remain  whether  or  not  there  is  any  observ- 
able tendency  in  evolution  to  reduce  the  abnormal 
destruction  of  life  to  the  lowest  terms  consistent 
with  the  preservation  of  species.  Fourthly,  these 
observed  facts  and  tendencies  would  then  need  to 
be  taken  up  into  our  general  philosophy,  and 
viewed  in  their  relations  to  other  and  higher  ends 
of  spiritual  well-being.  We  might  thus  win  a 
firmer  position  for  our  faith  that  the  providential 
order  of  the  world  includes  the  abnormal  as  well  as 
the  normal,  the  tragic  accident  as  well  as  the  nat- 
ural and  happy  issue  of  life.  The  author  hopes  to 
take  up  this  line  of  inquiry  at  some  future  time. 


BOOKS  BY  REV.   NEWMAN  SMYTH,   D.D. 


CHRISTIAN  ETHICS. 

International  Theological  Library. 
Cr.  8vo.    $2.50,  net. 


JOHH  OWKN  writes  in  the  London  Academy:  "Dr.  Newman 
Smyth's  work  is  a  most  valuable  contribution  to  the  science  of 
Christian  Ethics.  It  will,  in  my  opinion,  challenge  comparison 
with  any  work  on  the  subject  which  has  appeared  during  the  last 
half  century ;  and  remembering  the  famous  names  which  have 
treated  systematic  Christian  Ethics,  both  in  England  and  on  the 
Continent  during  that  time,  this  of  itself  forms  a  commendation  of 
no  mean  significance.  .  .  .  Though  philosophy  has  sometimes  to 
yield  to  theology,  yet,  on  the  whole,  the  book  is  marked  by  scru- 
pulous fairness.  In  none  of  his  preceding  works  has  the  promi- 
nently judicial  cast  of  his  mind  been  so  conspicuously  presented. 
The  same  remark  may  be  made  of  the  power,  charm,  and  variety 
of  his  illustrations.  His  style  also  is  lucid  and  limpid,  though  not 
free  altogether  from  the  American  vice  of  pretentiousness.  There 
are,  it  is  true,  certain  lacunce,  omissions  and  gaps  in  parts  of  his 
treatment ;  but  these,  it  may  be  hoped,  will  be  made  pood  in  the 
future  editions,  through  which,  in  my  judgment,  the  book  is  cer- 
tain to  run.  For  the  present,  at  least,  the  book  holds  its  own  as 
the  best  exposition  in  the  language  of  Christian  Ethics.  As  such 
it  is  a  worthy  contribution  to  the  series  of  which  it  forms  a  part, — 
'The  International  Theological  Library.'  With  the  start  given 
to  it  by  Professor  Driver's  '  Introduction,1  and  this  treatise  of 
Dr.  Newman  Smyth's,  the  series  may  be  said  to  have  been  most 
auspiciously  launched,  and  in  such  a  manner  as  to  ensure  complete 
success." 


PERSONAL  CREEDS; 

Or,  How  to  form  a  Working-Theory 
of  Life. 

i2mo.    Paper,  50  cents.    Cloth,  fi.oo. 


"  Dr.  Newman  Smyth  is  one  of  those  men  from  whom  the  Chris- 
tian world  wants  to  hear.  Many  may  not  agree  with  him,  but  his 
views  of  truth  stimulate  inquiry  and  aid  to  a  solution  of  difficul- 
ties. The  book  is  a  series  of  eight  discourses  addressed  to  a  very 
common  class  now,  'who  cannot  believe  everything  they  have 
been  taught,  but  who  would  not  miss  the  best  faiths  implied  in 
man's  truest  life.'  After  all,  it  is  a  selection  of  faiths,  while  the 
true  life  is  one  the  world  over,  through  the  ages ;  though  every 
faith,  again,  which  is  worth  considering  provides  in  its  precepts, 
if  not  in  its  dogmas,  for  that  same  true  life.  Dr.  Smyth  considers 
his  subject  ethically  and  scientifically,  so  to  speak,  in  a  sermon  on 
•  Moral  Beginnings,'  in  which  the  Bible  itself  is  in  a  measure 
forestalled  by  divine  working  in  the  mind,  irrespective  of  it ;  per- 
sonally, or  by  the  touch,  the  individual  mind  of  Christendom  has 
more  or  less  perfectly  kept  throughout  our  era  with  the  most 
divine  person  in  history ;  with  regard  to  the  ends  of  heavenly 
truths  ;  to  the  divinity  which  shapes,  as  the  great  secular  teacher 
of  the  English  mind  says,  those  ends  in  our  lives  ;  to  the  higher 
life  with  which  that  of  sense  is  related,  generally  called  'the  next 
life,'  because  always  postponed  by  us  in  the  body,  though  therein 
already  begun,  and  in  other  branches  of  his  subject  the  author  is 
both  rational  and  persuasive.  "While  some  old-fashioned  ideas 
suffer  disturbance  in  Dr.  Smyth's  volume,  yet  the  book  will  be 
helpful  to  many  In  leading  them  to  surer  grounds  for  their  faith 
and  hope."—  Christian  Inquirer. 


THE  ORTHODOX  THEOLOGY 
OF  TO-DAY. 

Revised  Edition,  with  Special  Preface. 
i2mo.    $1.25. 


"  We  cannot  remember  to  have  had  in  our  hands  a  book  of  more 

absorbing  interest.    The  rare  combination  in  the  author's  mind  of 

2 


the  poet,  the  logician,  the  scholar,  and  the  orator  Is  very  charming. 
.  .  .  His  'Orthodoxy'  is  the  traditional  theology  of  New  England. 
The  Calvinism  of  Jonathan  Edwards  is  his  canon  of  measurement. 
That  he  stamps  '  Orthodoxy,'  and  measures  everything  by  it.  Not 
that  he  agrees  with  it ;  by  no  means  ;  but  he  makes  it  his  point  of 
departure. 

' '  The  idea  of  a  Church  he  has  not  at  all.  Authority  has  no  weight. 
An  historic  creed  as  the  formal  declaration  of  an  historic  Church 
does  not  come  within  his  vision,  and  would  not  move  him  if  it  did. 
This  comes  out  strangely  in  his  last  chapter,  on  'Social  Immortal- 
ity.* There  every  promise  made  to  the  Church  as  the  visible 
Kingdom  of  Christ  is  applied  to  '  Society,'  and  there  is  no  hint 
in  the  chapter  that  the  author  had  ever  heard  of  the  'glorious 
company  of  all  faithful  people.'  But  with  all  this  he  is  reverent, 
devout,  and  humble.  When  he  comes  to  deal  with  the  popular 
conceptions  about  the  future  state,  he  is  singularly  felicitous. 
There  are  here  some  of  the  clearest  and  most  important  distinc- 
tions we  have  ever  seen  upon  the  subject.  The  relation  of  the 
future  life  to  space,  to  time  ;  the  real  meaning  of  the  phrases  '  eter- 
nal,' etc.,  are  worthy  of  most  careful  study.  .  .  .  This  book  will 
repay  more  than  one  reading."  — Episcopal  Register. 


THE  REALITY  OF  FAITH. 

i2mo.    $1.50. 


"  These  are  beautifully  written  sermons.  There  is  great  fresh- 
ness of  illustration,  an  attractive  style,  and  through  all  a  warm- 
hearted earnestness  of  thought  not  always  found  in  the  utterances 
of  the  pulpit.  .  .  .  The  reader  will  be  struck  with  the  tender 
hopefulness  of  the  tone  of  these  sermons.  .  .  .  The  book  contains 
twenty  sermons,  two  of  which  we  especially  commend  (not  mean- 
ing to  slight  the  others  in  the  least),  viz. :  '  The  Law  of  the  Resur- 
rection,' and  'The  Last  Judgment,  the  Christian  Judgment.' 
Without  absolutely  agreeing  with  these,  it  is  nevertheless  impos- 
sible for  us  to  read  them  without  being  struck  by  their  fineness 
and  depth  of  thought.  They  are  sermons  especially  for  the  closet, 
with  sentences  swiftly  following  one  another  over  which  the  reader 
asks  leave  to  pause  and  dwell.  With  much  less  of  the  burning 
energy  of  the  English  preacher,  there  is  something  in  Mr.  Smyth's 
book  which  reminds  us  very  markedly  of  the  late  F.  W.  Robertson. 
Perhaps  there  is  a  spiritual  likeness  between  the  two  minds  which 
can  account  for  this."  —  The  Churchman. 
3 


CHRISTIAN  FACTS  AND 
FORCES. 

i2mo.     $1.50. 

"These  twenty  sermons,  with  one  exception,  preached  within 
the  limits  of  a  single  year,  and  probably  forming,  therefore,  a 
fourth  of  those  actually  delivered,  represent  a  ministry  of  very 
high — we  are  afraid,  we  must  say,  of  quite  unusual — excellence. 
In  our  judgment  Dr.  Newman  Smyth  deserves  to  be  ranked  not 
only  with  Dr.  Munger,  but  also  with  Dr.  Phillips  Brooks,  as  repre- 
senting in  its  best  form  the  pulpit  of  America.  Dr.  Munger  we 
should  regard  as  the  most  intellectual.  Dr.  Brooks  as  the  most 
poetic,  and  Dr.  Smyth  as  the  most  practical  and  direct  in  utterance. 
Profound  thought,  poetic  expression,  directness,  may  be  found  in 
them  all ;  but  the  preponderance  in  their  sermons  of  these  charac- 
teristics is  probably  that  which  we  have  ascribed  to  each.  Such 
men,  great  favorites  as  they  are  with  the  students  in  the  American 
colleges  and  the  younger  ministry,  are  sure  to  lead  the  pulpit  of 
America  into  larger  thought,  more  spiritual  conceptions,  and  a 
deeper  ethical  interpretation  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ."  —  Literary 
World. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  FEELING. 
A  Study  for  Faith. 

I2mo.     $1.25. 


OLD  FAITHS  IN  NEW  LIGHT. 

I2mo.    $1.50. 


For  tale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent,  pott  -paid,  on  receipt  of  price.  Of 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS,    Publishers, 

743  &  745  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK. 
4 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  751  619     8 


